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talenlee · 1 month

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Story Pile: Christine

Christine is a 1983 horror novel and movie about Stephen King’s ongoing fascination with What If A Thing Was Evil. Having done clowns and spiders and dogs and being alone with your wife, Christine wants to bring this powerful critical tool to bear on the question of What if A Car Was Evil? Would That Be Fucked Up Or What?

Set in the 1970s the story –

The story –

Look I’m going to spoil some things, so like, spoiler warning.

The story of Christine is— that is, Christine the movie — simple. There is this car, you see, and it’s evil. In a series of completely unsurprising events, where nothing transpires that should surprise you, a character acquires this evil car, and the car starts doing evil things. The sequence of events is that a character who is bullied acquires the car, then becomes focused on the car, then the car starts killing people. The car’s owner is confronted, decides they’re okay with it, the car is stopped by their friends, and in the process, the owner dies.

Christine as a story is, essentially, a Simpsons Treehouse of Horror segment. If you’re used to horror media being built around an elaborate twist or some deep insight, it isn’t that kind of thing and I don’t think it’s ever trying to be. This isn’t about why or how a car could be an evil car, but much more about the very tangible question of ‘what if there was an evil car.’

It isn’t like I wasn’t having fun watching this movie. It wasn’t even that I was expecting there to be more to it. It’s only when I was reconstructing the movie’s timeline for this writeup that I realised how simple a story the movie is. If there’s a twist anywhere in it, it’s out of expectations I don’t have because I’m used to the way this kind of story is structured. Behold, a nerd, and that nerd is isolated, and responds by falling into something dangerous, and that something dangerous will destroy him, except along the way it will also destroy a lot of other people who suck as well.

I don’t know if I just don’t get Stephen King’s work, really. I don’t know if Christine really counts as being a Stephen King movie of course; he wrote the book, but as with all movies-of-books, there’s layers of interpretation. That’s where the ideas that seem missing in the movie get explored. In the story presented in this movie, I think it’s trying to draw you along the line of the nerd’s experience. You start out oppresed, then presented with a thing that changes that, focus on the change, try something different and then the change makes your life better by defending you from violence (through violence!).

The story takes you a place you probably want to go (where the very bad people in his life are punished) and then goes even further (where his friends are injured). I didn’t find this particularly relatable, because this nerd has a pretty understandable sucky experience of high school and is surrounded by people telling him to change or improve when he’s… like… seventeen. He’s enduring one of the least fun parts of his life and nobody’s defending him from the bullying by people with knives who should… and then the story escalates, through the narrative device of a haunted evil magic car.

I’m led to understand that in the book, Christine (the car) is haunted by the ghost of the previous owner, and this ghost seems to possess our nerdy protagonist. Christine is still a mystery, but the previous owner is more of a cultist engaging with the cursed car. That’s not part of the movie, though — in fact it kind of doesn’t work with the movie, because the role of that character isn’t in the movie. That role is instead handed to his brother — the brother who is also responsible for the same lines of dialogue that nerd winds up quoting, invoking the idea that he’s somehow becoming like that owner, don’t come from that owner.

It reminds me a lot of, and I swear I’m not messing with you, Biblical Harmonisation.

If you engage much with Biblical apologetics, which is the social practice of publically making up excuses for flaws in a human made text, you’ll encounter a common trend in how criticisms are restructured. When you present a series of contradictions in the text, like where one character is said to do something and in a different book that same thing is done by another character, you’ll often get a response that involves constructing a fictional thread of narrative that can make the two different accounts compatible.

It doesn’t matter how unlikely that thread is — what matters is that there is a way that the story can be reconstructed so that these two incompatible texts secretly do work together. The book of Christine includes things and the movie of Christine includes different things, and hypothetically you can use them to inform one another. I don’t want to, though — what the movie leaves unstated means we don’t have to deal with an extensive exchange with a racist grandpa, and there’s less of a focus on things like the importance of the military.

Instead, the story as presented is about an evil car.

Make no mistake: Christine is, as a movie, entirely worth the time I spent watching it just for the sequence of watching the damaged car repair itself. It’s great. There’s a greatness to the kills too, an excessive glory in how the movie treats the space around the car, and the sensuality of the material object that is Christine. Things like the use of the radio to communicate messages – threatening or otherwise – is a really cool touch. Christine is the character that drives the story and she’s really excellently played by a series of props.

I like this movie.

I also think it’s kinda got that fascist death cult thing going on that’s fundamental to a lot of Americana of the era. The Nerd never changes his ways from his devotion to Christine. He embraces the violence, the object, the change to himself, and reaches out for Christine as he – and it -dies, and the story treats his death as tragic. It’s a glorious death in its own way, where yes, he died, but thanks to him and his devotion to Christine, the bullies that hurt him and also a few people including a cop, are all dead.

The fantasy of a bullied nerd embracing evil power to finally get rid of the bullies is a pretty common one. It’s a very American story. It’s a story that’s mirrored in how they talk about school shootings. It’s a fantasy that there are problems and solutions that can’t really be addressed, but wouldn’t it be nice if they were. Shame there’s no way to consider it, or fix it, or address it.

Car’s just evil, you see.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#Media #Story Pile

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luuurien · 2 years

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Sharon Van Etten - We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong

(Indie Rock, Singer/Songwriter, Synthpop)

Sharon Van Etten's sixth studio album scales the emotions and isolation of the pandemic to the most dramatic stakes of any artist thus far, gigantic pop anthems that underlie stories of hopelessness and vines of emotion covered in poisonous needles. Though We've Been Going About This All Wrong sounds declarative musically, Van Etten's gutting performances and songwriting are anything but, the most possessing and captivating album she's released to date.

☆☆☆☆½

Where do you turn to when every avenue for your escape disappears? For Sharon Van Etten, that answer lies within her music. Now over a decade into her career, Van Etten's soul-baring music has traced the paths her life has taken her on over the years - Epic's visceral diaries on escaping an abusive relationship to Are We There's reckonings on loss and balance; 2019's masterful Remind Me Tomorrow that used bright synthpop to explore the deepest internal workings of her mind - and her sixth studio album We've Been Going About This All Wrong is no different. What has changed, though, is how Van Etten goes about those emotions in her music, taking the extra time and emotional pressure the pandemic forced her to engage with to bring on more external influences into her music's world: forest fires and stove lights, the way heartbreak manifests in a sunrise. Sitting atop some of the most grandiose and dramatic production she's ever had in her music, the overall impact of We've Been Going... so large it could split a planet in two. Few other albums this year are able to match its gravity. Though she opens the album up in plaintive, sighing acoustic guitars on the wildfire-centered opener Darkness Fades, the song quickly reveals many of the new tricks Van Etten utilizes throughout We've Been Going..., blending Remind Me Tomorrow's synthpop elegance with the heat and intensity of her previous indie rock outings for a new sound completely. Caked in layers of electric guitar, watery synths and minimal drumming, her soaring vocal performance cuts through the air like a fog light through campfire smoke, articulating the difficulties of motherhood and holding hope for the future in a time where nothing was certain anymore in her usual painterly ways. Van Etten's songwriting has always been a compromise of impressionistic storytelling with deep personal narratives, but the distance that lyrical styles puts between her and her emotions helps bring songs like Home to Me and Far Away to life, able to interrogate her dependencies on being a mother "I need my job / Please don't hold that against me / You are my life") on the former and the fragments of a relationship that are lost as time goes on in the latter ("Don't know what it is so far / I'll be here / Not only when you feel long lost") without cutting into herself so deep that the music isn't able to keep up with the flow of emotions. The songs themselves hit harder than ever, too, thanks to production help from Daniel Knowles alongside Van Etten: the penultimate synthpop Epic brings the same kind of heartland rock thrum her Angel Olsen collaboration Like I Used To has, but with Van Etten driving the bus the song is even bigger, twinkling background arpeggios twirling around four-on-the-floor power chords that only continue to get louder over the song's four-minute runtime, finding a perfect middle ground between the cinematic sheen of Seventeen and the rugged, raw power of Every Time the Sun Comes Up. But despite We've Been Going... being filled with back-to-back pop epics, it never fatigues because of Van Etten's ability to constantly surprise you with each new song. Just because these songs are big doesn't make it easy to predict how they'll run with the ball. The power in We've Been Going... lies largely within Van Etten's voice, more emotive than ever as her shivering vibrato and raspy low range are asked to take on the biggest fight of their lives. The simpler statements the core of many songs here rely on - "I couldn't feel anything," "Come Back," "Where Have You Been?" - end up blackjacking her voice into exposing its undiluted potency as she wrings out every bit of feeling these short ideas give her. Come Back, by a thousand miles the album's best song, starts off the way a classic Van Etten folk tune might start: simple, open-chord strums her voice floats on like snowflakes atop an icy river, but as she heads straight into the chorus with a massive burst of electric guitars and drums, her drawn-out pleas are kept alive by the bounce in her vibrato and the delicate harmonies she lays out in all the chaos. Home to Me's futuristic synth tones and downtempo serenity are bolstered by Van Etten's soft verses that swell into a romantic, delicate ball of warm reds and yellows you can feel pooling around you as the song moves forward, the single acoustic ballad Darkish another one in this same vein that makes it clear that she hasn't lost her gentler touch just because the rest of the songs are so regal. By not trying to avoid the pandemic album tagline many other artists have intentionally swerved away from in the past two years, Van Etten can dig into a more urgent side of her artistry than others, all the feelings built up in the moments to We've Been Going...'s release poured out in the most cathartic and illuminating way she could deliver them to the world. Sharon Van Etten has always been an artist of progress, and though returning to her indie rock roots may seem like a contradiction to that, she inoculates them with a potent dose of the synthpop and dream pop sound she's been crafting over the past few years to make a stronger album in its totality. She is both curious and terrified, longing for touch and reeling at the thought of it, always one step ahead and one step behind her own mind, and We've Been Going... lets all those juxtapositions coexist within the music, the most rounded group of songs we've gotten from Van Etten so far. No conclusions are made by the end of these 39 minutes, nor does it feel like Van Etten is all that far from where she started when the album began, but that's not the point. We've Been Going... is the internal monologue of someone rediscovering what means most to them, how valuable it is to hold things close to your heart and be honest with yourself completely. Van Etten doesn't have the answers to any of the problems she and the world are facing, but she provides a touching and incredibly convincing template to begin finding ways for yourself to heal from it all along with her.

#sharon van etten #we've been going about this all wrong #jagjaguwar #dream pop #indie pop #indie rock #pop #pop rock #rock #singer/songwriter #synthpop #2022 #9/10

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storyshark2005 · 3 years

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Fic Excerpt - Tim/Kon in “East of Eden”

Little excerpt from my WIP “East of Eden”. Conner Luthor is visiting his newest friend Tim Drake in Gotham. The two take a break from studying-slash-Warcraft and venture outside. Teenage habits ensue. (No warnings, pre-Tim/Kon)

Alfred finally kicks them outside after two hours of Warcraft. And thank God they were both Alliance characters, because Conner had spent a hell of a lot of hours building up Aristos the Lightforged Draenei Paladin to level 120, and he just looked really cool, so all it took to get Aristos in the same Guild as Nyx Stormseeker the Night Elf Demon Hunter was a realm transfer and bam!, they were questing across Azeroth.

“No, no, that one goes in the red tab--”

“But that’s where the red pole goes. Right?”

“Well this one--” Tim frowns, staring down at the fiberglass tent pole in one hand. “Wait, there’s three red tabs.”

“What the fuck,” Conner laughs, starting down at the pile of nylon. “Why would there be an odd number?”

“No wait, here it is, it’s just not at a corner. It’s like a brow pole or something. See this goes under here, then over that one--”

“That doesn’t look right.” Conner tilts his head to one side, then the other.

Tim groans, and throws the mess of nylon and poles down on the ground, flopping down into the grass.

“Dude, I have no idea.”

Conner follows him down into the grass, lacing his fingers behind his head. The autumn sun felt gloriously hot under the chilly breeze, baking hot patches of denim onto the tops of his knees and thighs.

“So when do we light the bonfire?”

“Probably not till it gets dark. We’ve got another hour.”

“What should we do till then?”

“Well...” Tim grins slow like syrup to the clouds, lifting his hips to dig his fingers into his back pocket.

“What?”

Tim shakes out a plastic baggie.

“Oh, you’re bad--” Conner laughs.

Tim pulls a pre-rolled joint and a lighter out of the baggie. “What can I say? I’m a rebellious child.” He clicks the lighter a few times. “My life be like-- ooh ahh!”

“Does Bruce know you smoke?”

“We both pretend he doesn’t.” The joint jumps between Tim’s lips. “This lighter sucks--”

“Give it here,” Conner gestures for the unlit joint. “Check this out.”

He sits up, making sure Tim is out of the line of fire, and stares at the end of the joint, keeping his gaze soft like Clark had taught him. The air shivers, and the end of the joint glows bright orange.

“Holy shit,” Tim breathes, eyes wide. “That is so cool--”

Conner lays back down, tucking an arm behind his head. He takes a pull, holding the smoke deep until his lungs burn.

“It was--” he hacks out a cough. “It was the first thing Clark taught me.”

Tim takes the passed joint. “What else can you do? Besides save people from falling seventeen stories with your mind.”

“I don’t know,” Conner closes his eyes, feeling the soft numb heat wash down from the crown of his head, his tongue going heavy and dry. “I can run really fast. I can jump really far. But I’m not strong like Clark, and I can’t fly.”

Tim blows smoke up into the yonder blue. “You’re gonna fly, Con.”

“Yeah?” Conner tips his head to the side, staring at the black-red ends of Tim’s curls.

Tim tips his head to Conner, so close that Conner can see the near-translucent layer of freckles splashed across his nose and cheeks. He holds the joint aloft.

“Yeah,” he nods, sounding absolutely certain.

Conner takes the joint, cheeks tingling hot under the sun. He looks up to the clouds, wonders what it might be like to fly over and through them, what the world might look like from a mile above. If it would seem very big, or very small.

Or maybe both at once.

---------------------------------------

*The “ooh-ahhh”! moment inspired by this burquillos masterpiece:

https://burquillos.tumblr.com/post/631867454580195328/kontober-day-13-this-is-my-favorite-conner-luthor

#tim/kon #fanfiction #fanfic #fic excerpt #WIP #Clex #tim drake #conner luthor #conner kent #east of eden fic

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winter-fox-queen · 3 years

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The Gentry’s Gifts: Max Phillips

Hello! This is sort of a sequel to the Pero story, in that we saw Max and now we know what he was doing there and what choice he needed to make.

Warnings: Cursing. Angst. I had the trick of having to put both blank canvas characters into one story, lol. But I think I finessed it. The “you” character is a blank slate, mostly gender neutral (mentions of wanting to have children could sway your perception one way or the other.). Not betad.

This is my late #writerwednesday entry, thank you to @autumnleaves1991-blog and @clydesducktape

Prologue:

Max Phillips slammed the hospital doors open, eager to get outside. The sound beeping machines seemed to echo in his ears, making them hurt. The smell of the place stuck to the back of his throat.

He tilted his head back in the afternoon sun, and breathed in, breathed out. Tried to make himself calm down. The Autumn are cleared his head as he jogged across the road.

“Bad day?” A voice asked.

Between two benches, almost hidden in the orange leaves, was a woman, instead of the ‘Nam veteran he usually passed a few moments talking to. Her wiry steel colored hair was in a messy bun, covered by a turban. She wore layers and layers even though it was a warm fall day. “Where’s Raffi?” Max asked.

“His daughter found him. He decided to try living with her again.”

Max nodded. “I hope it works out. She wasn’t…apparently he isn’t easy to live with. Bad dreams.”

“It’ll be better now.” She said with such serene certainty that Max believed her. He gave a little wave and walked away.

He was back, twenty minutes later. He put a chocolate shake in front of her, and a boxed fried chicken meal. If he had known his folklore…which, sadly, he would become intimately familiar with, he would have understood her amusement. Milk, bread…these were the Old offerings.

Instead he shrugged, uncomfortable. “What? I figure everyone likes chocolate. And I needed to eat, too.” He sat next to her.

“How old are you?” She asked, though she knew.

He shrugged. “Seventeen.” He buttered a biscuit and took a huge bite. He ate like he was starving. “Why?”

“You seem to be awfully young to be hanging out with homeless people. Where are your parents?”

He shrugged again. “My mom’s gone. My father…”. He pointed towards the hospital doors with his chin. “He’s dying.” He hunched over the greasy box of chicken, potato strips and biscuits, eating like it was the only thing keeping him sane.

She sighed.

He looked at her, and she shook her head, and ate the food he brought her. You are going to go off the rails Max Phillips. You are going to go off the rails so badly and there’s nothing I can do about it.

The Present:

He entered the library through the basement, crept up the stairway. The first floor was nearly empty…the university library kept late hours so that students could cram late into the night, but it was Thirsty Thursday and most of the students were elsewhere.

He waited until you were focused on the book cart again, back towards the main floor, and got himself around the corner. Then he pulled out his cell and dialed the front desk.

You now turned to go to the phone, at least he hoped so, as he disconnected the call and opened the side door to the area behind the circulation desk…

You were there, leaning against the cart, arms folded. “Nice try, but I know your tricks, Mister Phillips.”

He grinned and advanced on her, step by step.

“No no…”. You point a finger at him. “Stay back, this is a work place…”. You shoot a look towards the front desk as he backs you into your office. “You are going to lose me my job.” You hiss at him, and he bends a little, and kisses you breathless.

“Quit. I’ll take care of you.”

You wrap your arms around his shoulders. He’s cool to the touch. It’s not disconcerting, not like it used to be. “I wish I could.”

“Stop wishing...”

“If you say ‘and make your dreams a reality’, I’ll bite you.”

Max looks offended. “It’s a great slogan! Do you know how many units of Losapill those golden words have sold?”

“I don’t understand how I can love someone so much and want to punch them so badly.”

He grins down at you. “I can name several reasons why you love me.”

You smirk up at him. “I’m sure you can…let me go, honey. I’ve got to tell everyone we’re closing in half an hour.” He listened to your voice on the loudspeaker, buttery and gentle and reassuring, and smiled a little. He could listen to that voice forever. He could sell holy water to a priest, but so far all his skills had failed to net him the one thing he wanted.

He walks with you, as you check the restrooms (He even does the men’s for you on each floor, turning off the lights and blocking the doors open) and stands behind you, hands in his pockets, looking gloomy as you gently tell students to take their books to the front desk if they needed to check them out, that the library was closing shortly.

He waits, patiently, while you close up and lock the doors and usher the last people out.

“I really wish you’d let me turn you,” he says when you are both in your car and on the way home. Max often took the rooftops from his office to the university. He was fast, and strong, and being fairly indestructible made him long for the thrill of possibly getting hurt, so he parkoured his way through the city once it got dark. It was disgusting, how he looked so good after running and leaping five miles.

He shifts in his seat as you let the silence grow. “Are you ignoring me?”

“Yes.” You stop at a red light.

“Why? You said you’d think about it. You’ve been thinking about it for a month. Any idea where you are on it? Like, from the scale of one to ten…”

You’ve been wanting to avoid this. You’ve really been wanting to avoid this. “Zero.”

She waits. She waits for the torrent of salesmanship. The spiel. Why becoming a vampire and living forever is what she wants, she just doesn’t know it’s yet.

For once, words fail him. No quick comeback, no charming lines. “I can’t believe you don’t want to be with me.” He says it so softly that you almost aren’t sure you heard it.

You pull into the apartment parking lot, picks a spot quickly you can park and take his hands in yours. “Max. I do. I really do. But just…I don’t want to be a vampire. I don’t want to give up the things I would have to give up?”

“Like what? Death? Getting old? Getting sick? Being weak?” He pulls his hands away. “I am offering you unlimited time. Think of the things we can do together! And you don’t have to kill…I haven't killed anyone in ages!”

“Sunlight.” You say. “Food.” He makes a disgusted sound and looks out the window. “A family.” You take a deep breath. “Children.”

He finally looks at you again. “Then I won’t waste any more of your time.” He raises his hand, and time goes wonky for a moment, and when things snap back into place, he’s gone.

You stay in your car a long time, hoping he’ll come back. Every step up to your apartment, you look around, hoping.

It’s dawn, before you give up, dried out from crying, your mouth feels full of ashes and your heart full of regret.

The next day:

Max was not in a good mood the next day. Usually he has a nice word for, if no one else, his PA, a miracle worker of a woman he’d always been fond of, but he just glared at her and slams his door shut.

Emails. Reports. He plowed into work.

The door opened, and he ignored it, steadfast in the hope that whoever it was would go the fuck away. I could always eat them. I don’t have to be good anymore.

A cup thumped down on his desk. He looked up. He didn’t recognize the woman — her steel grey hair was neat, her suit elegant. Her heart beat strangely, and he could tell she was not — quite—human. Great. Someone new from corporate?

“I thought you said that everyone loves chocolate?” She said, pointing at the milkshake. “You’ve come far, since we last spoke outside the hospital…”

He shook his head. “I remember you, but…”. How did she come to be here? Why? His brain was still trying to match up the homeless lady with the epitome of corporate flash in front of him.

“Now, I didn’t say you moved in a good direction. How did the sweet boy who spent his last twenty on dinner for himself and a homeless woman end up being a bloodsucking asshole selling fake products?”

“It’s a long story. Let’s schedule an appointment, maybe for the next century?”

“Nope.” She reached across the desk. “You gonna drink this?”

He shook his head and she took the milkshake, leaned back in her chair, moving the straw back and forth in the lid, making an annoying shriek sound that hurt his ears.

“Do you think I wanted this?” He snapped at her. Vampires didn’t really need much in the way of sleep, but he was tired. Tired and hurt. “And who gives you the right to fucking judge me?”

“I’m one of the gentry,” she said. “That doesn’t give me the right, but it gives me the power.”

“You’re fae. That explains it. You don’t seem human.”

“I thought they taught you the rules. You never call us out so clearly. Always call us by some euphemism and hope we don’t take a notion to turn our attention towards you.”

He threw up his hands. “Why? Why does it matter?”

“Because if I wanted to, Max Phillips, I could turn you back into the weak, dying, foolish mortal you once were.”

This stopped him. “You could?” He said carefully.

“I could.”

“What’s the catch?”

She smiled. “Good boy. Maybe they did teach you something, after all.” She put the milkshake on the desk. ”You were…what? Twenty, twenty one when you got turned? I could, if I wanted to, make it as if you never got turned. I could choose for you to age to the age you should be, had you not cheated death…or I could make you start from where you are right now. If I was feeling so inclined.”

“Why would I want that?” He scoffed. “Do you think I want to get old and sick? Do you think I want to spend the last year of my life in a hospital bed, unable to even piss for myself? You think this is a fucking gift? Enticing? No.”

“So you don’t want a life with the librarian? Probably for the best. She is made out of sunlight and deserves so much better.”

He stopped. He could feel the slipping…where the darker side of him started clambering up, eager to take control and rend and kill.

“Hush.” She said, and the blood stopped rushing in his ears, the fangs stopped aching. “I shouldn’t needle. It’s just so frustrating. You were a sweet boy and you just allowed the bad in your life to make you…well, frankly, a bit of a jackass.” She shoot him an apologetic look. “OK, that was a cruddy apology. But. Back to the subject at hand. Once, you were kind to me. And if you do me a favor — one more favor — I will give you a choice. A chance to choose a life for yourself instead of being a victim of bad choices and worse luck. No strings. No further price.”

He side eyed her a long moment. He was intrigued, despite himself. “What’s the favor?”

She took a small painting out of her pocket and slid it over to him. “Another debt to pay…that woman has a soul mate out there. I know where he is. If you get her to my house tomorrow night, I can unite them, give them a chance at well deserved happiness.”

“Yeuch.” He said, then picked up the painting. “Wait. That’s my PA.”

“Is it? How delightful. Isn’t just splendid how fate intervenes.” She put a card on the desk. “This is the address. Hope to see you.” She held up her finger. “There is one thing. She can’t know. You have to get her there without her knowing why. Alright?”

“Don’t hold your breath.” He muttered.

“Good. I am glad you understand. Ciao!”

He picked up the card. And cursed a bit.

NIght, in the time middle of nowhere:

“So, Mister Phillips…are you taking me out into the middle of the woods to murder me?” His PA asked, laughing. She didn’t know he was a vampire. Telling people what he was hadn’t worked out very well at his last job, so he’d been much more circumspect this time.

“I promise, you are safe. From me. I don’t know what Corporate will do, though,” he said, turning down another road.

“So, did they tell you what the meeting is about?”

“It’s meant to be a retreat. All the heads of the various branches and their PA’s. They want to re-envision the future of the company”. He took one hand off the wheel to put air quotes in the right place. “Apparently they messed up your email address so we didn’t get the invite in time. Someone caught it and called me directly.”

“I hope the place they picked is nice…”. She was looking out the window, trying to make out the road ahead. “Carol in accounting is super jealous. I think she has a bit of a crush on you…”

“Well, I am irresistible.”

“Mostly.” She grinned at him. A square of light grabbed her attention. “I think we’re here.”

He pulled up to the house. It looked sketchy at best, and the looks his PA were casting made him wonder if her trust was stretching a little too thin.

He got out and walked up to the porch. The Fae came out this time wearing a chic, flowery dress. She ignored Max and called to his PA. “Don’t be afraid. You are here so I can talk to you about your dreams…and by that, I mean the Spaniard, with the scar over his eye.”

The PA froze. “You…you know about him?”

“Go inside, dear, and I will tell you all about him. But I need to talk to Max, here, first”

His PA stopped next to him, put her hand on his arm. “Will you be OK?”

“Absolutely. You know me.”

She went into the house.

“Come here, Max.” The Fae held out her hand, gesturing him to come up to the porch. He did. A card table was set up, with one chair. Two cards lay face down. “Here is your choice. Are you ready?”

He stood there, looking at the table, and nodded. Fear coursed through him, as strong as the day cold hands grabbed him from behind, teeth sinking into his throat…

She reached down and flipped over a card. The Queen of Spades. “Darkness ever lasting. A vampire queen even now is looking for her equal. She will choose you, and the two of you will know power beyond your wildest dreams…until enough people get angry about it and decide to deal with you both. You will not love her, but who needs love when you have sex and death and all the power you ever hoped for?”

She reaches again, flips over another card. The Queen of Hearts. “And this. This is life. Your soul will wake up, and you will be twenty one and full of possibilities again. Your heart will beat every beat that was stolen from you. The slate will not be wiped entirely clean, but you will have a chance — a chance with your lovely librarian. Children. Be kind when you were once cruel, and live a decent, good life.”

His lips were numb. “How…how long?”

“Long enough. You will not feel cheated. It will be a plain sort of life, but it will be yours, and you will have the woman you love…some would say that is worth dying for.”

“What do you know about death? Your kind just fade when they are tired of living. You will never know the absolute fucking horror of your body betraying you. The fucking humiliation that waits. The pain.”

“No.” She said softly. “I do not.” She kissed his temple. “I am sorry. If I had met you sooner, perhaps…but, in any case, I consider all debts paid. When you are ready, pick up the card representing your choice, and rip it in half. Choose well, Maxwell Phillips. May we never meet again.”

He didn’t notice her leave. He sat down, weak, at the table.

Life. Death. Life. Death.

He’d seen both his parents die terribly. After he was turned, he’d mourned, then he realized the gift he’d been given. No hospitals. No lingering disease. No pain.

His hand hovered next to the Queen of Spades. No love, but power and sex. He’d tried to recover, tried to be good, for you. And he’d started feeling the guilt. And with guilt, came all the excuses. That he was living according to the nature that had been forced upon him. That he was giving people a gift…they died, or they become something that could never die.

You don’t punish the wolf for being a wolf.

But that was why it had been easy to walk away. Because you deserved better. Not a vampire. Not a wolf. A man…

He did not hear the car, but he heard the thump of the other man’s steps as he mounted the porch.

“She’s in there…” he said, barely paying attention.

When the other man left, he repeated what he said to him, in his head. Choosing between life and death.

He picked up the Queen of Hearts. His hands were shaking. He ripped the card in half. Darkness roared around him, pulled him under.

When he woke up, he was on the floor of his apartment.

No. His fucking. College. Dorm room.

“Dude, you started early.” Evan’s stupid face appeared as he bent over him.

Max wondered if he could punch him in the face. It would feel really, really good to punch the other man in the face,

“OK, well, I’m going to an away game…see you sometime tomorrow.”

He put the palms of his hands in his eyes. “Yeah…have fun.”

Evan stepped over him. “See ya…wouldn’t want to be ya!” The door slammed shut and Max raised both hands in a one finger salute towards it.

He made himself get up and go to the bathroom. He looked younger but not better, per se. What is wrong with me? What’s this feeling?

It wasn’t just that he could feel his body working. Feel breath (was breathing always so fucking noisy?) and heat beats and aches in his neck and back from laying weird on the floor.

He’d lived for years. But right now, he was still the same angry, miserable hit mess of a man he’d been at this point of his life.

A phone was ringing, he went and grabbed it.

“Hey Maxie. Is Evan gone?” Evan’s girlfriend. Great.

Oh.

“Yeah. Yeah. Look…”

“Awesome. I bought the cutest bra and panties…”

And this is where, he thought, this is where he took the step to becoming the man you deserved him to be. “That’s great. But you know…I only want to fuck you because your boyfriend is an annoying twit.”

Shocked silence. OK still an asshole. Check. So much for being a sweet boy when I was younger. “Look. I meant what I said. You are beautiful. You are probably far, far too good for Evan. Or maybe not, if you are willing to screw around with an asshole like me. In any case, you deserve better. But you have to decide what better is.”

This treated him to a string of profanity before the woman hung up.

Then, he walked to the infirmary, and asked for aspirin. And if there were any free spots for the therapist.

Sunday, the conversation between roommates went like this:

“So you were going to screw my girlfriend?”

A shrug — Max concentrated on the video game. “Changed my mind.”

“Why?”

He paused the game. “Because you deserve better.”

He felt Evan throw himself on the couch next to him. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

“I don’t hate you. You’re just so fucking happy and peppy and optimistic and everything is going to be awesome but I think the world is shit and misery and maybe if you dialed it back a little I we could have conversations that didn’t end with me wanting to punch your face.”

“Dude.” It sounded defeated and apologetic at the same time.

Max held a controller out to him. “Sorry. I’ll try to be less of an asshole.”

He took it. “I’ll try to be less…happy?”

Max sighed. “Just don’t get me kicked out, ok? I can’t afford anywhere else and I really don’t want to end up in Transylvania.”

Two years later, he decided he could go and find you.

Most people went to nice places on their spring break.

Max got on a bus and headed to a University in the next state. They’d had their Spring break a week sooner.

There you were. Sitting cross legged on a bench with a man with a streak of blonde in his hair, and a suit coat with elbow patches. Elbow patches. Pretentious asshole.

You were tucking hair behind your ear. You liked him. Max wondered if he should leave, come back…in a year? Three? When did he have a right to become part of your life? Did he even?

You look at him and smile and it is sunshine and he can’t leave.

The man on the bench says something about class. “See you at work,” she tells him, and he lopes off in an easy walk to one of the brick covered class buildings.

Max approaches carefully. “Hey. Um. I’m thinking about transferring here, wondered what it’s like?”

She shifted her bag over, even though there was plenty of room to sit, and he took it as an invite. “Sure. What do you want to know?”

He gave her his best smile. “Everything. I want to know everything.”

#Max phillips #max phillips x reader #writer wednesday

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dapandapod · 3 years

Text

Sing with me

This one is for @jaskierswolf, my last entry for mermay!

Please enjoy some Jaskier x Mer!Valdo with some fairytale feels to it. Thank you a billion to @kuripon for being my beta! (go give her fics a read too, they are amazing)

Here on Ao3. Please enjoy.

Lettenhove is beautiful in spring. Buds breaking into leaves, flowers forcing their way out of the frozen ground, the sky clear and blue. Jaskier loves it, and he wishes he could be out and enjoy it. But here he sits, listening to his tutor going on about the great wars of the continent. He used to be interested, but his new tutor is a right bore. He is never allowed to ask questions, or move about. And Jaskier is nine, he wants to move a lot.

What makes it better though, is the view. The room the tutor claimed for their studies has a view of the bay below. It lies undisturbed, the harbor being built in safer water with far less protruding rocks. If Jaskier focuses really hard, he can hear singing from down there.

He shuts his eyes real hard, ignoring the howling wind, ignoring his whining tutor, and focuses on the splash of waves and rich voices harmonizing along the cliffs, bouncing off the stone. It earns him a slap on the wrists most times he is caught, but it is worth it. Sometimes he sneaks into the classroom after bedtime. He sits down in the alcove in front of the window and opens it. Propped up on his elbows, he looks down below, the height making the underside of his feet tickle, and the wind is blowing gently in his bangs. More than once he falls asleep there, lulled by the singing below and the splashing of waves.

One day he will go down there and meet them. The sirens.

Jaskier gets a new tutor. She is younger, brighter than the last one, and she smells like the sea. Her eyes are the deep grey of angry skies and her smile as soft as seaweed. He likes her a lot. She teaches him to sing, and the lilt of her voice reminds him of those below, those hiding in the crashing waves. She teaches him the ways with a lyre, and she lets him ask every question that pops into his mind.

But something goes wrong. He isn’t sure what happens, but one day after their studies, she kisses his forehead and bids him goodbye. “It was nice knowing you, little Julian,” she whispers, like it is a secret. “Come visit us some time.”

The day after, a stern, thick man takes her place. The man frowns when he sees the lyre, decorated with seashells, but lets him keep it and doesn’t tell his father.

And when night falls, Jaskier creeps back into the classroom. Elbows propped against the window, he sings. He knows their songs now, their words, and he knows she is down there.

Jaskier is thirteen when he braves it for the first time. The climb down there is steep, loose rocks and wet grass under his feet keeping his heart in his throat.

But he wants to meet them before he leaves. He has been accepted to Oxenfurt for his studies, and he is leaving before his fourteenth birthday. He stumbles and falls on his butt, sliding down a few paces before he finds his feet again, scraping his knee. It stings, and the leg of his trousers is ripped, but he keeps going.

It's not until he stands, watching the water churn among the rocks, that Jaskier allows himself to breathe. Small droplets of salt water hit his cheek, his nose, and he blinks. They watch him, as he watches them. Jaskier can see them in the middle of the bay, settled on the rocks sticking out of the water. None look like the other. One's skin is rich gold, another a deep brown. Another is pale white, shimmering like a pearl. Their hair is sticking to their bodies, long and dark. Only two of them seem to favour a shorter hairstyle. Not all of them even have fish tails.

Jaskier takes a tentative step closer to the water, knowing full well he will die if he falls in. Maybe he will die anyway. All of the stories he has been told about sirens end with humans dying.

But they came to him. She kissed his forehead and sang him good night.

He won’t believe it.

One siren dives beneath the surface, her tail green and red. He waits for her to approach, and when she is close enough, he recognizes her. Her eyes are still the color of angry skies and her smile is still as soft as seaweed. She greets him with warmth, and bids him sit.

They sing together, and it takes all of his concentration to remember the words. It’s been years, after all, but he falls back into it easily enough. The others join them after a while, their curiosity peaked by a boy by the sea, learning their language. Those with legs come sit with him, and he blushes at their nakedness when their bodies are revealed.

That summer, for every night he is able, he sneaks down to the bay. He learns their names and their singsong way of talking. When he tells her about the lyre, how he has it hidden from his father, she is delighted. She teaches him more about music than any tutor he has ever had ever, and her way of telling stories is like poetry.

When fall comes and Jaskier is put in a carriage to Oxenfurt, he doesn’t cry. He has needled from his mother and older sister that they have the song there too. It may be in a different form, but he has sworn to her to bring it home to them.

Jaskier is seventeen when he meets Valdo Marx.

That boy is like no other in Oxenfurt. He is wild, rude, funny and absolutely beautiful. He sprays himself with thick and expensive perfume, but Jaskier smells it on him anyway.

The sea.

Valdo's hair is thick and dark, just like theirs. Jaskier watches him in the lazy hours in the morning when they sit in the library. If a ray of sun hits him just right, there is a vague shimmer to his skin.

Jaskier knows.

And he is besotted.

But approaching Valdo Marx is harder than anything he has ever done. Their ways of singing are much alike, and Valdo takes great offence at that. Where Jaskier tries a tentative smile, Valdo sneers. Scoffs, mocks and pushes him away.

Jaskier doesn’t understand it, but he accepts it. If their rivalry is all he can get, he will take it. So it's song duels, poetry battles, drinking games, anything to get his attention. Valdo keeps the act up, but sometimes when they part, Jaskier thinks he can see the hint of a smile.

The water near Oxenfurt is so very unlike the water at home. It is calmer, for one, and the water is so very clear.. Jaskier likes to go down there in the early mornings. He avoids the harbor as it is a busy and dangerous place at times, and these nights he wants peace.

He longs for them. His friends. People call him songbird, but no, that’s not it. Jaskier follows the beach and when the weather allows he takes his shoes off. At home it was dangerous to step into the water, but here the waves lap at his feet, hiding them under a thin layer of sand. It is harder to find a good place to sit, so he is far from town when he reaches his chosen spot. He leans back against a tree, watching the sun slowly rise above the water. Gulls cry over him and dive into the water for breakfast.

Jaskier likes to sing here.

Not as he does in school, nowhere near that. Here he sings in their language, far from prying ears. No one sings with him, but that is alright. It’s been years since he went back there. He probably won’t ever go back there again.

His father is not a kind man.

Jaskier sings his sorrows away. It feels like he is calling to them, a lonely cry over the waves, asking for someone, anyone to join him. It would be nice if Valdo sang with him. Maybe, if he is patient, he will win him over.

Things change when Jaskier gets in a fight. He didn’t mean to, he is shit at fighting and the sight of blood makes his head spin, but here they are. And he is losing too.

A fist slams into his ribs, making him bend awkwardly around the pain. Jaskier grunts, but straightens up, or at least he tries to. His feet are kicked from under him, and next thing he knows, feet are raining down on him.

They kick his hip, his already aching ribs, his shoulder, his fingers.

Jaskier doesn’t see Valdo in the tavern. Doesn’t notice those ocean eyes on him, his silence and his observance.

Only when the blows stop, and Valdo is taking a swing at the offender does he notice. Turns out Valdo is bad at fighting too, and they run from the pub together, bruised and swearing. They stop in an alley, hidden far enough away from the street, catching their breath. Only when they are sure they are not being pursued does the laughing start. More like giggling, actually. Neither is completely sober, adrenaline rushing through their veins, and the sheer absurdity of it all has them hiccuping and wheezing, leaning against the wall for support.

“Why the fuck would you pick a fight with that guy?!” Valdo wheezes, wiping tears from his cheeks. “He was huge!”

"He was being an asshole!” Jaskier defends himself, but he agrees. Maybe not his brightest idea. They sink down against the wall, catching their breath. The ground is a little muddy, but his trousers are already dirty, so it doesn’t matter.

When they sit side by side, Jaskier watches Valdo’s profile in the semi-darkness. He doesn’t usually get to see him up close, and with the light spilling from a window somewhere above them. Valdo is beautiful. And in this low light, Jaskier can see the hint of scales again. He knows Valdo is probably wearing a glamour, so he isn’t supposed to be able to see it. Valdo looks back at him, eyes still glittering with humour.

“What?” He asks.

“Thank you. For helping me.”

Valdo looks at him searchingly for a long moment. Then he nods, as if he has made up his mind.

“You are welcome.”

They sit in silence for another few moments, letting the buzz of Oxenfurt nightlife surround them. Jaskier is looking up over the rooftops, trying to see the stars, when Valdo speaks again.

“You know what I am, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“You sing like we do.”

“I do.”

“Why?”

Now it is Jaskier who turns his head and finds Valdo watching him. He blinks fast a few times, trying to chase away the flutters that rise in him.

“One of my tutors came from the sea. My father didn’t like her, so she didn't stay, but we found each other again. She taught me songs and words and stories.”

Jaskier can’t tear his eyes away, watching Valdo watching him.

It is a strange sensation, having Valdo’s attention like this.

“Is this why you keep going to the water to sing?” Valdo asks, surprising him. It must show on his face, because he smiles gently at him, and Jaskier feels like he could melt.

“I hear you sometimes. When I’m out swimming.”

Jaskier has to swallow hard before he can reply. He would love to see Valdo in the water. He remembers how graceful they are back home, how they moved in the water, strong muscles playing under the skin.

“It is,” Jaskier confirms when he has himself under control. “I miss them.”

“I don’t know where my family is,” Valdo says after a while. “I left to come here. But I will find them again. Some day.”

Jaskier stares at his boots for a moment. He wants to ask, he wants to ask so badly. He is a little afraid to do it, seeing that they just got on speaking terms.

“Would you uh…”

Valdo is still watching him as if he is trying to figure him out.

“Would you sing with me some time?”

There. He said it.

Valdo opens his mouth. Closes it. Tilts his head.

“Do you know what it means to sing together?”

Jaskier shakes his head. He doesn’t. But it always meant a lot to him, and Valdo holds a special place in his heart. He wonders how their voices would sound together.

“It means belonging. Is this what you are asking of me? To belong?”

Oh.

Oh, that puts warmth in Jaskiers heart. To have found belonging with his people in the waves, to be accepted, chosen and loved.

And it flusters him greatly that he is now asking the same of Valdo.

Because he is, he realizes. He would like that very much.

“If you’d like. Some day. I’m not asking for it now. I just… I would love to see you in the water sometime.”

Valdo doesn’t reply. He stands up, dusts off his trousers.

“We’ll see. Maybe.”

Then he stretches out a hand to help Jaskier up.

Valdo's hand in his is soft, warm, firm. When they are both on their feet, Valdo doesn’t let go of his hand immediately.

“I think I can see what they saw in you,” Valdo says slowly. Jaskier doesn’t really understand what he means, but he loves it all the same. They make their way slowly across town, following the ebb and flow of its inhabitants. Valdo is still holding his hand.

It takes months, years for Jaskier to see Valdo swim. His tail shares the color of seaweed, scales sparkling in the evening sun when he breaches the surface. Jaskier watches from the bay, far away from prying eyes. Valdo is every bit as magnificent as he thought he would be. Their journey here was long. A tentative friendship growing and growing. They still have their rivalry, are still at each other's throats most of the time.

But tonight, when Valdo offers to bring him to the sea, Jaskier know that too is about to change. Jaskier is wading out into the water, and Valdo swims to meet him. When the water comes to his chest, Valdo wraps his arms around him. It is cold, but Valdo pulls him in close and pushes their foreheads together.

“Will you sing with me?” Valdo asks, stealing Jaskier's breath away.

“Yes.”

#mermay #mermay 2021 #valskier #valdo x jaskier #mer!valdo #sirens #the witcher #the witcher au #julian alfred pankratz #oxenfurt #lettenhove #dapanda writes #i am so tired #i don't know how to tag anymore

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whump-town · 3 years

Text

I got bored and yeah...

She can’t stand to hear the ways that the room shifts when Aaron’s back turns to face them and they are once again deaf to his ears. The ways in which they retell harrowing stories that paint him in light of novelty and grandeur. Sometimes even in hopeless vulnerability that leaves them all a little shaken, unsure of where to look, and untrusting in his motives. She hates to hear stories about Aaron Hotchner because she knows that in every way that they are the same, she is so different.

Today, they can stand across from one another -- nearly mirrors. The same dark hair that draws their features dauntingly sharp and their chests a mass of scars. Deep and ugly and snarling in ways that are not daringly enchanting like Morgan’s. When their clothing drops to the floor, the gasps aren’t for heroic bravery. It’s in terror of what gristly sort of monster sank its claws into them and tore them apart to leave them stitched and scarred to their cores.

George Foyet.

Ian Doyle.

The monsters of men.

Take Aaron Hotchner apart and you will find his sum. The seven-year-old boy who walked to the grocery store with a grocery list from his neighbor every Tuesday after school. The four-year-old who never wore shoes and ran barefoot up and down his drive-way. The seventeen-year-old on his last leg who didn’t think twice about stealing dinner for Sean but not himself. The fifteen-year-old with an unset broken clavicle running his track race to avoid going home that night only to pass out on the field.

Aaron Hotchner is a scared boy, a wounded animal, an ex-husband, a widower, a federal agent, a father, the first person you call when shit goes wrong, a leader --

Who is Emily Prentiss?

When she was seven she ran through her house, so excited to grab her new boots and show them to one of the girls in the neighborhood. That old house shook with her every step and with a wobble and a crash, she brought down an expensive vase from its overpriced pedestal. A maid took the fall, a single-mother under the poverty line, and Emily knows she put that woman back on the streets struggling to feed her children.

At four, she was spoiled out of her mind. Anything she wanted she could have. Being cute and angelic she made her mother look perfect. Into princess-styled bellowing dresses she went, some as expensive as the down payment they made on her college tuition, and she thought that was normal.

The night of her seventeenth birthday she slept with a thirty-seven-year-old man. He worked for her mother and, though Emily didn’t have the proof, she was certain she was an affair for him. The tan line on his ring-finger never really went away. She couldn’t bring herself to care and when he wouldn’t give her the money for a morning-after pill she stole one from a store she can’t even remember the name of. She was seventeen but she’d already spent most of her life listening to grown men rave about how grown-up she looked.

Curled around the toilet, her mother off on some trip (father never having been in the picture) she laid on the bathroom floor waiting for Matthew. Crying through the pain. She was fifteen-years-old and terrified she was going to die on this dirty floor from an abortion she didn’t fully understand. Nothing was helping and Matthew had held her in his lap for hours. And it would be her fault, she now knows, for his spiral into drugs and alcohol.

So, Hotch can still be a good man in the agony that he has now. Underneath the man that runs himself to the ground and the guy who yelled at her five minutes ago for not having paperwork done is the same man who has each of their take-out orders memorized. The same man who brings them coffee when Jack’s school gets pushed back two hours in the morning.

But underneath her layers, she is still just a bad person. A spoiled child, a stupid teenager, and a scarred adult.

And now, here he comes, quick to apologize for his outburst. Probably having spent his night with a sick eight-year-old or sick himself. Coffee in one hand and meekly offering it to her. “Emily…” Because stand them to toe-to-toe and you can see how different they really are.

She never apologizes to him.

She doesn’t trust them enough.

She’s cold, distanced, and protects herself behind the rouse of humor.

Emily Prentiss is a bad person and that’s tearing her apart.

#criminal minds #aaron hotchner #emily prentiss

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cutieodonoghue · 3 years

Photo

dark gray (17/17)

summary: Killian Jones operates a lighthouse in the middle of nowhere, preferring a life of isolation, until one day a woman and a baby wash up on his little island and change his life forever.

read it on: ao3, ff.net

and also catch up on Tumblr!

a/n: Hi friends! This is the final chapter! Thank you so much for all of your support. I’ve truly enjoyed reading all of your reactions as you’ve re-read or read this story for the very first time. Please raise your hand if you’re interested in an epilogue! I have one written but I’m not 100% on it just yet. Anyway, love you! Enjoy!

///

Seventeen

Top to bottom, the Nolan house is full of the Christmas spirit. They have a tree in their living room, brightly lit with shining ornaments and white bulbs. There are red and green pillows on the furniture and special decorations on every surface available. It smells like gingerbread and peppermint.

Emma’s mother makes Killian a bed in their living room, giving Smee the guest bedroom, but once the lights go out, he climbs up the steps to the upstairs and crawls into bed beside Emma, much to her delight.

Her bedroom is small, but it does its job. Her queen sized bed is covered in blankets, seated on the opposite end of the room from Henry’s crib. The boy rests peaceful, something he’s sure has been a relief to Emma.

Her eyes brighten and she beams at him. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

She kisses him softly. To be with her again feels surreal, so he’s basked in every second, trying to memorize the way she stares back at him in the quiet moments, the timbre of her laughter when he teases her, the gentleness of her fingertips when she’s finding his, and the way she sighs just a little each time they kiss.

After she pulls away, he brings her fingers to his lips and kisses her knuckles, content in the warmth of her bed and their closeness. It’s been far too long and he’s missed her dearly.

Even though they haven’t been together for long, it feels to him as if he’s known her for a long time. It’s funny, what he’s missed about her includes all of her frustration and annoyance with him and his behavior. Has it always been love?

“What happened to you?” she whispers, rubbing her thumb over the apple of his cheek. “Tell me the whole story.”

He winces, hesitant. “I don’t know if you want to hear that right now… we should be celebrating being together again. Trying to figure out what life means now that we’re here.”

“I know… but…” Emma stares at him quietly. “I want to know. Tell me.”

Sighing heavily, he inches closer to her under the piles of warm blankets, resting his palm against the mattress between them. He focuses on his hand, thinking back to that day, where he stood on the beach watching her leave on a boat headed to the mainland.

“They came to the island. Outnumbered me.”

The air on board their ship had smelled thick of smoke, alcohol, and grime. The men had thick accents, but spoke English, and had wasted no time getting to business.

Emma’s fingers trace lines over the healing bruises on his face, tender and worried.

“They wanted to use me as leverage, but I don’t think they knew who I was. Not really. I think they thought, perhaps, I was more important to the government.” He meets her eyes. “They were talking about a nearby cruise ship. Thinking about commandeering it. I’m not sure how, after days of misery, I was able to send an S.O.S., but I did. Then, I was able to do enough damage that the engine stopped. Stalled us for a while.”

He’d been parched and starving, his body numb from the cold air. His fingers were shaking when he sabotaged the engine and his chest ached sharply from a couple of broken ribs each time he took a deep breath.

“They found me and knocked me unconscious.” He closes his eyes at the brutal memory. “And stuffed me into a barrel that they tossed into the water. After that, help came, pulled me out, and they were able to stop them. I guess they’d been trying to put an end to this group for a while.”

Emma covers his hand with hers, soothing him. He meets her eyes, searching them for a moment.

“I just knew I needed to get back to you. You kept me alive.”

She leans into him, their foreheads touching. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“No, no,” Killian murmurs. “Don’t be sorry. It’s in the past. It’s already done.”

“If we’d stayed any longer…” She stops herself.

He kisses the tip of her nose and then her forehead twice. “You and Henry got away safe. I survived. All that happened is just bad memories now.”

He wraps his arms around her when she curls her body into his. He lowers his lips to her head, closing his eyes. She seems to have lost her words, but her being close to him is more than enough comfort.

As time goes on, he finds that they’ve started to breathe in unison.

“I wish we could’ve had a happier beginning, my love, but I promise that we’ll have the happiest future, even when it’s hard.”

She is quiet for a long time, so long that he very nearly falls asleep to the feeling of her breathing evenly against him.

“I love you.” Emma whispers.

That’s all that matters, isn’t it? They have each other.

“I love you too.”

Killian’s arm is draped directly over her belly, which makes Emma’s heart squeeze tightly in her chest. She feels his breath warm against her neck, and their legs are tangled beneath layers of blankets.

Mary Margaret loved him at first sight. Meanwhile, David had kept his emotions close to his chest, hesitant to accept that this was the man Emma had been with for a month.

They fed him, gave him towels and fresh clothes to shower and change, and when it came time for bed, Mary Margaret practically sang him a lullaby.

David, not so much. But it was understandable.

Her father has often admitted to her that this is the part of being a parent he had never been certain of: judging another man to be worthy of his daughter. With Neal, he’d been a little too unsure, to the point that he had to keep apologizing for not having protected her enough.

But with Killian, Emma finds herself worried that her dad won’t accept him regardless of who he is and how much he means to her.

Turning to face Killian, she still allows him to hold her. His eyes open, one after the other, and a sweet smile dances playfully on his lips. “Morning.”

Emma cards her fingers through his hair, biting at her lip. She hums. “Morning.”

She listens for a few moments, wondering if her parents are awake yet. “Do you think my parents know you snuck up here?”

“Oh, most definitely.” Killian says, making her laugh. “I made a lot of noise coming up the steps.”

Emma scrunches up her nose and puts her hand on his cheek, preparing to kiss him. “Yeah. You kinda did.”

Killian laughs into a sweet morning kiss, one of many she imagines are to come. The hope she has for their future is bright, and she knows he feels the same.

When they pull apart, Emma whispers, “It’s Christmas. Merry Christmas.”

He awards her a soft smile, “Happy Christmas, love.”

“How does it feel? It’s your first Christmas away from the island in a long time.”

Killian chuckles. He pulls his hand up over his face and lies flat on his back. Turning his head to her, he says, “I’m just happy to be here with you.”

Her heart very nearly melts. “Killian.”

“Emma.” He smirks when she gives him a daring look, her brow raised. “Truly, I am. I don’t need anything special.”

“You deserve something special.”

She can tell he has something absolutely abhorrent to say before he even dares whisper it. “I do have something special. I have you. We have our little family. That’s enough for this Christmas.”

Damn him. He’s far too charming for his good.

“What about next Christmas?” she wonders, poking a little at what he’d said.

“I’ve got big plans for next Christmas.” She lifts a curious eyebrow as he takes her hand. “We’ll be living in our house by then, so I figure we’ll have it decorated like Santa himself lives there.”

Emma laughs. “Yeah?”

“Giant tree,” he says, gesturing out with his left arm, “Of course. In the foyer.”

She hums. “Yes. Of course. Go on.”

“Lights everywhere. Garland will practically grow from our limbs.” She can’t help but laugh at the mental picture of Killian wrapped in garland. Killian smiles. “Oh, and we’ll have this nice Christmas dinnerware that your mum is going to give us as a wedding present.”

Emma can’t help but smile at him silently. He stops orating, staring at her with bright eyes.

“Did I mention we’re getting married soon?”

She bites on her tongue, keeping her laughter at bay. “Soon, huh?”

The tips of his ears turn pink with the slightest bit of embarrassment. He reaches for his ear, giving the spot behind it a nervous scratch.

“Well, I think so.”

Emma lets him squirm for a second or two before she kisses his cheek. “What else is going to happen next Christmas, when we’re married and living in our own house?”

He takes a moment to gaze at her, sleepy, with a lopsided smile on his lips. His hair is such a riotous mess first thing in the morning, something she gets very nearly distracted by, were it not that he’s talking to her about their future and it’s the most heartwarming feeling she’s ever had.

“Presents. Loads of them. Most for Henry, but at least half for you.”

Emma gives him a skeptical look. “That’s a lot.”

“Well,” he smirks, “I hate to brag, but next Christmas, I have a wife and I worship the ground she walks on.”

She laughs loud enough that she has a worried thought of waking someone. Emma slides close to Killian, putting her hand against his chest.

“Well, next Christmas, my only requests are that I want there to be stockings that we hang by the fire. Because we’re going to have a fireplace.” He nods in agreement. “And... I expect a lot of mistletoe kisses.”

“Anything you wish.” Killian kisses her chastely. “And magical snowflakes for the stockings will be safely stored in our freezer.”

Her heart squeezes longingly as she thinks about what next year might look like. One year from now, things will be so much different than they are today. Henry will be so much bigger. Killian will have settled into his new life in Storybrooke. They’ll have a baby of their own.

Fondly, she thinks about what Henry might be like as a big brother. She hopes he’ll be gentle and kind. She knows Killian will be amazing. He’s proved as much with Henry.

“Next Christmas, what if we…”

Henry stirs to life, blessedly pulling Emma out of anything she was about to say to Killian. She’s on her feet in an instant, going to find him in his crib.

“Merry Christmas, Henry!”

Emma’s mother busies herself in the kitchen even before he, Emma, and Henry join the family downstairs. She wears a bright red sweater and an even brighter smile.

“Merry Christmas!”

Emma’s wearing what she’d dubbed as her “cozy clothes”, an oversized Christmas sweater and leggings below. To his surprise, she dug into her things to find her thick rimmed glasses, something that makes her even more adorable to him.

“Merry Christmas, Mom.” Emma steps into the kitchen, coming alongside her mother. She’s still carrying Henry, so she’s careful as she gives her a side hug.

“Did you sleep well?” Mary Margaret wonders.

Emma hums. “Yeah. Pretty well.”

When her mother turns back to what she’s doing in the kitchen, Emma meets his eyes and gives him a private smile. He winks back at her.

“Dad still asleep?”

“I’m hoping we can wake him up with some Christmas breakfast. What do you think about cinnamon rolls?”

“Sounds good.” Emma nods. She reaches into a cabinet for a bottle for Henry. “Hey, Killian?”

He moves swiftly into the kitchen, already grabbing for Henry before she can ask twice.

“Thank you.” Emma gives Henry’s fingers a gentle squeeze as she smiles up at Killian. “I almost forgot how well we work together.”

He laughs warmly and carries Henry to sit down at the kitchen island, bouncing the boy just a little trying to distract him.

“So, Killian, Christmas day isn’t usually this laid back…” Mary Margaret says, turning from her bowl of ingredients. “We usually have a lot of guests and family stopping in throughout the day, but this year, we’re going to just keep it simple. We’ve all been through a lot. And I think it’ll be nice for Henry, too. We don’t need to overwhelm the baby.”

Emma hums in agreement. “Last year there were forty people here at once.”

“That’s… a lot.”

Mary Margaret chuckles. “Well, David and I both come from bigger families. I have a lot of cousins I grew up with, and he has a twin with a family of his own. Not to mention all of the friends we have in town.”

It’s not all that surprising to him that they’d be popular. In the short time he’s known David and Mary Margaret, they’ve been more than kind and hospitable. Well, except for David asking some tough probing questions.

He finds that Christmas is far more enjoyable here, amongst friendly faces, than it ever has been. While he doesn’t have any gifts to give or to receive, he does have plenty to be grateful for.

Emma sits at his side for most of the day, both of them loathe to be apart. They’d spent hardly a month together, were separated just as long, and suddenly, they can’t get enough.

He can’t and won’t complain.

She runs her fingers through his hair, her nails gentle on his scalp, while they watch Henry playing with some toys David and Mary Margaret had given him. Every so often, he’ll look at her, a smile on his lips, and she’ll award him sweet kisses if her parents aren’t in view.

Mary Margaret gives him far too much to eat and drink, and David peppers him with a series of questions that Emma rolls her eyes at.

“So, where are you thinking you’ll live?”

“Dad.” Emma says, offended on his behalf. “Give him a break. He just got to town.”

David returns her frustrated expression with one of his own. “I’m just curious!”

Killian glances at Emma briefly, whose hands cover her face. She’s clearly mortified. “It’s okay. I don’t want to speak for Emma, but I was thinking once I find some work, we could find ourselves a house somewhere nearby.”

David’s eyes widen a little. “Oh?”

Emma sighs. She stands, deciding to clean up the nearby coffee table to busy herself. “Maybe lay off until the holidays are over, okay? Then you can ask your million questions.”

Her father glares at Killian slightly before turning his attention to his daughter. “Sorry, Killian.” He sighs, a playful smile on his face. “I hate to say it, but I’ve been dreaming of this day for a long time. You haven’t given me the opportunity to interrogate any boyfriends before.”

Emma snorts. “Yeah… for good reason. You’re scary when you’re Sheriff Nolan.” She pauses, looking at Killian for a second. “Besides, your interrogating isn’t going to scare this one off.”

Killian winks at her before she takes what’s in her hands to the kitchen in the room beyond.

“She’s my daughter. I have to.”

“Dad… I can hear your glare from here.” Emma’s voice carries in from the other room. “We’re trying to have a nice Christmas.”

“I’m not glaring!” David calls out. He sighs, looking at Killian. “Sorry if I’m asking too many questions.”

“I understand. You’re curious.”

“I’m not…” David stops himself. “Okay, maybe a little. She was in a bad relationship… and I didn’t even realize how bad it was. I guess I’m overcompensating.”

Killian smiles a little. “Rest assured, David. I have no intention of harming either Emma or Henry. I would do anything for them.”

“What are your intentions?”

The abrupt nature of the question is jarring, but he can understand why David would wonder as much.

Nervously, he scratches beneath his ear. “I don’t think it would come as any surprise if I told you I’m in this for the long haul.” Pausing, he considers his next words with a heavy, cautious heart. “I’ve thought about asking her to marry me.”

David seems at ease by what he’s saying, but still maintains a fatherly glare as the seconds seem to pass into minutes of silence.

“You know, I think I can ask my friend down at the docks about a job. If you’re interested. Mostly desk work during the winter, but later in the year, you’d be out on the water.”

He smiles, nodding. “That’s awfully kind. Thank you.”

“Well,” David sighs, sitting back. “You’re part of my family now. I have to take care of you.”

Killian finds himself speechless. Years of living on his own, years of his childhood with only his brother at his side… and now, he has become enveloped in one of the most caring families he’s ever met.

He isn’t sure what he did to deserve this, but he’s certainly not upset. If anything, he feels unprepared to give back in kind.

But, maybe he doesn’t have to. Maybe just accepting their kindness and welcoming arms is enough.

“I think they like me.” Killian says quietly.

He sits on the couch with Emma, the room entirely dark with the exception of the television. Her parents and Smee had gone to bed a while ago, leaving them to finish a Christmas movie on their own.

It had been a wonderful day, filled with sweets and laughs, good conversation and new traditions. And even without a single gift given to him, he feels as if the day had been rewarding in many ways.

Emma peers up at him. She’s wearing a blanket up to her chin, her head resting on a pillow over his lap. “Of course they do.”

She sits up and decisively stands. Yawning, she asks, “Bed?”

Quickly, and as quietly as they can, they make their way upstairs. Before turning to the bed, they both approach Henry’s crib, settled against the nearby wall. He’s sound asleep, his arms sprawled out around his head while he breathes in evenly.

He’d had a very busy day, filled with new toys and bright Christmas tree lights.

“He’s so tired,” Emma murmurs. “He had a lot of fun today. I’m glad you could be here for his first Christmas.”

Killian smiles softly. “Me too.”

Emma bites on her lip and goes to sit on her bed, playing a little with a string from a quilt.

“So… how are you handling all of this? Okay so far? You can be honest if you’re overwhelmed.”

Killian smiles to himself. He joins her on her bed and sighs thoughtfully. “I had a perfect day. Thank you for looking out for me.”

“I just don’t want you to feel like you made a mistake.”

He tilts his head to the side, upset that she would still think he would be doubting his choice to be in Storybrooke with her. “Emma…”

“I know you love us and you won’t leave…” Emma whispers, “but my parents are the most important people to me after you and Henry, so… if they were too much, maybe we should’ve started out slower.”

“They weren’t. Trust me.” Killian assures her. He shakes his head. “They’re like the parents I’d always wanted.”

Emma sighs with relief. “I’m glad.”

Smiling again, Killian lifts his hand to gently tuck her hair behind her ear. He finds it sweet that she’d care as much as she does about making sure he’s adjusting well to the situation he’s now in.

She hesitates with something in her mind. He can see it, how she bites on her lip and slowly shifts her gaze from the floor to him again.

“What’s wrong, love?”

Emma turns toward him more. “I have to tell you something.”

He reaches for her hand, shaking his head with concern. “Are you alright?”

“I’m okay.” Emma promises, quickly suffocating his fear. She searches his eyes. “Do you know how we were talking about next Christmas?”

He nods, silent.

“I wanted to ask you this morning…” Emma pauses. She winces a little, lifting her shoulder in a half shrug. “How would you feel if… we had a new baby next Christmas too?”

He can’t help but laugh in surprise, lifting his eyebrows. “Erm… that would require… a little extra effort on our part to make sure it happened in time, I think.”

Emma stares at him, nodding. She smiles nervously, as if wanting him to read her mind. He can’t, no matter how hard he tries.

He scratches beneath his ear, feeling himself get a little embarrassed, though he tries to play it off as coy, “I imagine your parents would hate it if we started trying right this minute, darling.”

She rolls her eyes. “That’s not...” Emma takes his hand, bringing it over her belly. “I’m pregnant.”

His eyes grow wide in shock. His mind races while he tries to calculate what exactly she’s saying to him. “You’re… pregnant? A baby?”

Emma nods and laughs with an adorable wrinkle in her nose. She has tears in her eyes now. “Yeah. We’re having a baby. You and me.”

He laughs along with her in disbelief. This certainly wasn’t something he expected to hear from her, much less so soon in their relationship.

“Are you sure?” he asks. He’s still calculating, trying to understand how. “I… we haven’t… we only…”

“It’s... our gift from the island?” Emma says diplomatically, her eyebrow lifted along with the nervous inflection of her voice.

Killian laughs again, shaking his head slowly. “I’m shocked.”

Emma nods in agreement, eyes wide. “I just found out and I’ve been having a hard time wrapping my head around it.”

She sighs, seeming to have held onto a breath for a long time. “I was going to try to wait to tell you, but I couldn’t. All day, I’ve been thinking how next year, it’ll be so different because there will be a baby, you know? We’ll have a little baby and Henry’s going to be a lot bigger and…”

He nods, chuckling at how she’s started to babble.

“I needed to tell you before I went crazy.”

His hand is still pressed to her belly, thumb caressing. Emma leans into him, pressing her forehead against his.

“Are you happy?” she asks, clearly uncertain and nervous.

“Am I happy?” he repeats her question with a laugh. He pulls away just slightly.

“Yes. Yes. Yes.” He joyfully kisses Emma’s forehead between words before kissing her soundly on the lips, hoping she can tell that he’s more than happy. “It’s unexpected, but… I’m very happy.”

Her gaze is soft and her fingers are gentle on his cheek. “I am too.”

He’d lost literally everything he loved before he settled into his life of isolation. The island had given him nothing but dark gray skies for years, until one day, Emma and Henry arrived. And now, a baby.

Killian takes a deep, clean breath of his future. There’s something so wonderful in the air: a new life, a fresh start, a new beginning. He has nothing but time to enjoy it all.

#cs ff #cs au #cs fic #captain swan #my writing #dark gray #sorryyyyyy this is so late #i went away for a few hours lol #but anyway pls enjoy!

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itmighthavebeenintentional · 4 years

Text

Walk Me Home - Ch 6

Summary: Twenty-four years ago, Kimberly Harper met a boy who changed the course of her entire life before up and leaving one night. She spent years moving past the memories, building a stable, satisfying career as professor of folklore and mythology at the local university. Then the accidents start, and she’s forced to seek help among her hunter contacts. All it takes is a knock on her office door to send Kimber’s carefully built emotional walls crumbling to the ground.

Featuring: Teen Winchesters, high school romance, reunions, misunderstandings, high intensity emotional turmoil, Dean’s love of pie, Dean being adorable, Sam being adorable and maybe a bit nosy eventually, much group adorkable-ness, show-style investigation, mention of our favorite werewolf, gratuitous and obvious love of fall, DID I MENTION ROMANCE, fluff, smut, tension.

Warnings: Show level violence, show level parental neglect (let’s not John bash, I’m just saying), show-style witchcraft, show-level mental manipulation, stalking, bit of angst, sexual content (higher than show level), swearing, general yearning

Word Count: 1775

Author’s Note: All my thanks @mskathywriteswords , @fangirlxwritesx67, and @cracksinthewalls for making this story way better than it started. Thank you to everyone who read/reblogged/liked the first chapter. I hope you enjoy the story as much as I do. Also, hang on to something. This chapter is short, but it packs a bit of a punch.

I’m working on a follow-up to my Dean story Dear Mr. Fantasy that I hope to post sometime in the next few weeks. Check it out, if you haven’t, and let me know if you’re interested.

Keep in Mind: There are a lot of flashbacks. I tried to write current events in present tense and flashbacks in past tense. Here’s hoping I got everything right!

Please read/heed the warnings. 18+ ONLY.

In Case You Missed It: Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Ch 5 ItMightHaveBeenIntentional’s Masterlist

Chapter 6

“I think we can officially call this morning a bust,” Kimber declares, collapsing into her office chair. Dean sighs, rubbing his forehead with one hand, the other propped on his hip. He doesn’t disagree.

“We checked the grad student office where I found Allen,” she says, checking off her mental list as she goes. “You checked out the stairwell where Helen fell. We found zilch in Dr. Lawrence’s office, and nothing here, as well. What’s next?”

“I’ll check in with Sam,” Dean decides, pulling out his cell. “Then maybe some lunch, and if Sam’s done, we’ll meet him at your place so we can start there. Sound good?”

She nods as Dean hits a button on his phone, raising it to his ear and turning away. Kimber’s eyes follow him as he paces the front of her small office, waiting for his brother to pick up. She stretches in her chair, feeling drowsy after the morning’s exertion, and she realizes she’s going to have to get up if she doesn’t want to fall asleep at her desk.

She moves towards the door, mouthing, “Bathroom,” to Dean, who nods as he listens intently to Sam. The brisk air in the corridor is bracing after the still warmth of her little office, and she takes a deep breath before turning towards the restrooms. The hallway is as close as the department gets to being crowded, with several classes letting out simultaneously.

She pushes through the throngs of chattering students, smiling at a few of her own, intent on getting to the bathroom before it fills up, when she feels a light tap on her shoulder. Kimber turns, but before she has time to register anyone’s face, she feels something thrust into her outstretched palm.

…

Orange and red leaves flutter around her, joining the dense carpet of their brethren beneath her feet. Footsteps crunch before her, and she can see Dean just up ahead, her backpack slung over his shoulder. Dean never carries a backpack of his own, so they must have just finished a study session. He glances back, eyes alight with mischief, grin firmly in place.

“You comin’?” he asks. He doesn’t wait for an answer, just continues his casual saunter down the path as autumn rains down around them. “Wanna show you somethin’.”

She hurries to catch up, waving a stray leaf out of her face. The ground feels strange underfoot, too firm, her footfalls too loud for such a thick layer of leaves, but she’s too focused on Dean to pay much attention. Someone calls out behind them, but she’s determined to not be left behind a second time.

No matter how fast she runs, though, he stays a few paces ahead with his steady, cartoonishly slow pace, and she grits her teeth in frustration.

Molasses would be an improvement.

“You’re gonna love this, sweetheart. C’mon, it’s just up ahead.”

Their pursuer calls her name, closer this time, but Dean is right there, and if she can run just a little faster, she can catch him. She swats several leaves from the air, her mouth twisted in a frustrated frown, reaching out to Dean.

“Kimber! Stop!”

A voice echoes from behind her, but then Dean turns, holding his hand out, and she stretches her fingers, her feet leaden as she drags her body forward. He smiles encouragingly, curling his finger to beckon her closer, his other arm spread wide to reveal his surprise.

The trail ends abruptly at a sidewalk that leads to a house very similar to her parents’ old place (“They moved years ago,” she thinks), a house that was definitely not there before Dean pointed it out. The front door stands open wide, welcoming, as a sleek, black muscle car pulls up to the curb out front. Her eyes track the car’s approach, and she registers the name “Winchester” on the mailbox.

Breathing suddenly becomes very difficult.

As she watches, a couple slides out of the front of the Impala. Kimber’s eyes widen in shock as she recognizes herself and Dean, though not older as they are now. Younger, maybe just a few years out of high school.

But that’s not right, she thinks, her eyes flicking to seventeen-year-old Dean standing before her, urging her closer still. We’re not...we’re in high school, we aren’t grown...

The Dean before her holds his hand out silently, waiting as she struggles towards him. So close! she thinks. The voice behind her, so familiar, calls her name again, but her mind is foggy, distracted by young Dean and the phantom scene before her.

The couple embraces next to the car, blissfully unaware of their audience as Dean sweeps Kimber off her feet and carries her up the walkway. As they disappear into the house’s interior, she can hear her other self squealing happily as the door swings shut.

“I...can’t…”

Dean smiles at her, that sweet, just-a-touch shy smile that won her over so many years ago.

“It’s my dream, Kimber. We could still have it, if you want?” His eyes, so earnest, beg her to take just one more step. “Take my hand. It’s not too late for us. I’m right here.”

“Kimber, stop! Listen to me!”

She almost turns, the voice behind her is so desperate and beseeching, but Dean shakes his head. His smile widens, and he opens both arms to her, offering himself fully.

“It’s our last chance. Come to me, Kimber. This can be ours, sweetheart. You and me, just the two of us. Just take that last step. You can do this.”

She wants to, so very badly. Her mind pulls towards Dean, smiling and hopeful, and she wants with almost every part of herself to take that step, take his hand, and live happily ever after.

But deep in her heart, she knows none of this is true. The Dean before her left, no matter how unwillingly, and she hasn’t heard from him until yesterday. Neither of them are seventeen any more, and this dream was never possible for either of them, no matter how much they wanted it.

“No...no...you’re not…”

He frowns, his expression suddenly cold, alien, and absolutely furious. His features harden, and he turns to her completely, squaring himself and giving her his entire focus.

“Come here, Kimber. Take the damn step. Now.”

“No!” She doesn’t know where this reserve of strength is coming from, but she welcomes it. The fog begins to lift from her mind a little, and she manages half a step backwards.

Dean’s lip curls in a snarl, and she wrenches herself away, fighting to move in any direction but forwards. She throws herself back, expecting to fall, hoping the leaves will cushion her, planning to roll away.

Instead, she finds herself supported by strong arms that flood her senses with immediate relief. Something is jerked from her hand, and the autumn scene complete with the monstrous teenage Dean vanishes. The wind whips Kimbers hair in front of her face, and she looks down to see…

Nothing.

Arms pull her back from the edge of the building, and she chokes on a scream. Her self-defense training kicks in, and she throws her head back, trying to catch her assailant’s nose.

“Kimber, it’s me! I’ve got you, don’t fight!”

It takes a second for Dean’s voice to register, and by the time she realizes she’s safe, she’s already planted her elbow square in his gut. He releases her with a pained wheeze, doubling over, holding up a placating hand towards her. She realizes in a detached sort of way that she is breathing way too shallow and fast, but she can’t seem to stop.

“Breathe,” he wheezes at her, trying to straighten up. Something about the ridiculous sight of Dean telling her to breathe when he can barely pull in his own breath cuts through her panic for a moment, and she almost laughs. Her head whirls, colors starting to blur together.

From the view and the drop-off, she guesses they’re on the roof, though she’s never been up here before. She looks to Dean as her vision tunnels and a rushing noise fills her ears.

“Dean...Dean, you were...what did I…you said it was…”

Dean struggles upright and takes her face between his hands, forcing her to focus on him. “Breathe, honey. You’ve gotta breathe right now. Can you do that for me? Breathe with me. Slow, deep.”

She struggles to imitate him, and her lungs finally unlock enough to let in a reasonable amount of air.

“Kimber, I’ve gotta burn this thing. I don’t know if it can affect you from a distance. Just...here. Sit down right here. Keep breathing.” She drops where she’s told, lowering her head between her knees as she focuses on counting her breaths.

She can just make out Dean on the edge of her vision, crouching down. He pulls a lighter out of his pocket, flicks it, and lowers the flame to something on the ground before him. The object lights up with a whoosh of flame, and Kimber gasps as a searing bolt of pain flashes through her entire body before vanishing, leaving her feeling weak and shaking but finally, finally, back in control of herself.

Dean rises, stalks back over to her and drops to one knee, his fist pressing hard into the gravelled surface. He glares at the ground, his jaw clenching in a way that she’s glad is not directed at her. His nostrils flare, and his face flinches as he reaches some decision.

“I should never have let you go on your own. I’m not letting you out of my sight again until we gank this son of a bitch.”

She shrinks under the burning intensity of his words, and he closes his eyes for a second, wrestling with control of his anger. He holds a hand out to her, and she almost recoils, remnants of the vision burned in the back of her mind.

But this isn’t some sinister phantom leading Kimber to her death. She knows exactly who this is, and she trusts him implicitly.

Dean’s entire body relaxes when her palm touches his, and he drops his forehead to their joined hands. When he finally looks up at her, his eyes are green flame.

“I almost lost you. You were so close, Kimber, you were on the edge. I...”

He trails off, searching her face for a heavy moment. Without warning, he slides forward, releasing her hand to pull her face to his, kissing her with a fierceness that steals her breath and leaves her glad she’s already on the ground.

…

Chapter 7

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kawaii-kozume · 3 years

Text

One Day the Only Butterflies Left(Will Be in Your Chest)

Rated T+. Very heavy themes discussed. Solangelo. 3066 Words.

On the verge of no return, why'd you keep fucking it up?

Don't wanna have to bury you, but nothing seems to get through your skull.

It started after the repairs were finished. Or was it after Apollo showed up? Or maybe it started when Meg disappeared. Or when he found out about Jason. Or maybe, Will thought, it started back before he even first talked to Nico.

It was easy to wave off, especially after Nico told him what he did. What a night that was, sitting on the hard, marbled floor of the Hades cabin, holding the other boy tightly as he sobbed through story after story about his involvement in the wars. Will tried, he really, really tried. Every new realization struck him like one of his dad’s poison arrows and he eventually had to ask Nico to stop. Then they sat in silence until the sun rose.

So yes, Nico di Angelo, the love of Will’s life, was mentally fucked up and Will couldn’t do anything to fix it. He’d done as much as he could. He made Dionysus aware, he provided physical comfort, he let Nico cry on him as often as he needed, he listened to Nico’s mad ravings in the middle of the night when Tartarus’ claws were so deep in his mind. With all of that going on though, Will missed it. He missed the signs and he let the emotions fester and the toxicity bubble up around them.

That’s how he found himself staring at Nico, thinking gross thoughts about walking away from the brunette with the bleeding arms. He glances at the hand hovering around the wounds and bites back an angry huff.

“What happened?” He asks. Stupid, warm your voice.

“The-the-the- sac, the poison, Bob’s gonna burn, I gotta-” Nico brings the hovering hand to his arm again, curling his fingers to scratch the reddened skin. Will softly grabs the hand, preventing it from doing further damage.

“Shh, love, it’s okay, Bob’s going to be fine,” Will didn’t know exactly what Bob was, but it apparently mattered much to his broken lover. “It’s okay now.”

Nico’s eyes were darting around, searching for something, but his eyes were glossy as if he weren’t actually seeing his surroundings.

“No, I gotta get to the door.” He mutters, trying to wrench his arm away. A heavy lump formed in Will’s throat, blocking the little saliva he had left in his mouth. He holds Nico’s hand steady.

“Neeks, baby, if I go get Mr. D, I need to know you won’t hurt yourself.” Will knew if he walked Nico to the Big House, Nico would be upset when he came to. It was just before lunch, the majority of the camp was already at the dining pavilion and the stragglers were sure to be heading there now. Nico doesn’t respond.

“Nico, please. I don’t want to hurt you further.”

“ Percy, please be there. ” Something in Will snaps. It was like a twig in the woods under the foot of a mouse. It was fragile to begin with and even though the final bout of pressure was so small, it broke him. He can’t keep doing this. He’s only seventeen, he’s lived through two wars and lost so much already. Will stood there for what felt like hours, staring at the boy he loved with every fiber of his being, unsure how to move forward.

“ I’m so sorry, Neeks.” Will covers the claw marks, now layered with dried blood, and pushes Nico out the door of his cabin. Will was right; people stare as he pushes Nico forward to the one person who could stabilize his crumbling mind. He couldn’t find it in himself to care. Mr. D was already opening the door when he hauls Nico onto the porch.

With a quiet “I can’t stay.” Will leaves Nico in the director’s care and he walks off, away from the pavilion. He has no real location in mind, but something brings him back to the dark cabin on one of the corners of the unit. Will comes face to face with a heavy door and an even heavier feeling in his chest. He pushes the door open and shuffles inside. A year and a couple months of memory lives in this space and Will wants to forget each and every one. He can’t remember when he starts crying, but he moves through the cabin, pulling small items of his to take back to his own.

I hate to say "I told you so," but look how the bruises show

Tell me, how is it gonna feel without my arms wrapped around, wrapped around you?

The light is low and Nico is exhausted. He tilts his head to see the dying embers of a fire in a familiar fireplace. He’s in the Big House, alone. He sits up slowly, trying to remember how he got here. He vaguely remembers his cabin, blood, and Will. But Will’s memory isn’t warm like it usually is. It feels tragic and empty, almost like how Nico feels.

“Good morning.” A deep voice says and the sound of shuffling moves in. Nico looks up at Mr. D, afraid to ask his status. Luckily, he doesn’t have to.

“You had another episode. This one seemed much worse than the previous.” Mr. D gives him a sharp look now. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you avoiding me, too.”

Nico flinches at that. He knows he’d been but he didn’t think he needed to continue to check in. He’d been doing okay. Mostly nightmares, less waking blackouts. He moves his arm and hisses as bandages press against a wound.

“You clawed yourself up real nicely. It was kind of Sunless to bring you here.” Mr. D says and Nico’s stomach drops to his feet. Will was there.

“Can he come in?” Nico asks. Mr. D looks at him, curious.

“He’s not here at the moment. He didn’t answer where he was going but he dropped you off and walked away.” He speaks softly, as if Nico were a newborn deer and any sudden noise would send him skittering out into traffic.

“Oh.”

Mr. D sets a mug in front of him and stands.

“Drink. You’ll feel better.” Then he leaves. Nico’s not so sure what happens next because he forces himself to check out. It’s better not to feel than to feel bad things, after all.

You were dead to the world, now I'm dead to you

Haunting your own house, nothing to lose

It’s been three days since the last incident and things return to normal. Or so Nico thinks. Will knows he thinks so because he’s back to holding Will when they nap. Nico tries to engage Will in light bickering and Will tries his best to accommodate it. Will knows one thing though: whatever snapped in him that day hasn’t repaired itself. He finds himself not caring about what Nico has to say at breakfast in favor of asking himself Am I gonna find him broken today?

Nico notices him staring and nudges him with his shoulder.

“What?” He’s got a small smile on his lips, the same pink tinted lips Will adores, and a playful look buried in his eyes that only Will would know to look for. For a moment, Will can almost see who Nico once was.

“You’re playful today.” And apparently that was the wrong thing to say because after Nico’s responding hum, a shadow flits over his eyes and he goes quiet, staring at the bowl of oatmeal in front of him. Will’s chest tightens as he waits for an outburst. He almost cries when it doesn’t come.

“The world must have turned upside-down. I’m playful and you’re glowering.” The sadness in the smile Nico gives Will would be imperceptible to anyone watching, but Will sees it. He’ll always see it.

Past the point of rescuing, why'd I keep pushing my luck?

The hole I wore into your soul has got too big to overlook

“When I lose it completely, will you leave?” Even though it’s a question Will has asked himself many times over, he still finds himself unsure how to answer when Nico asks. They’re sitting in the basement room of the Big House on the concrete floor. Nico is sitting in between Will’s legs, pressed against his chest and clutching Will’s t-shirt like it’s the only lifeline he has. Who knows, in the next moment it could be.

Nico had another episode that morning, this time resulting in a child of Hebe getting cornered by skeletal military men. He was already in the basement after Will showed up to the Big House from the infirmary. The little girl had cried and asked Will many things he couldn’t answer. Did he mean it? Am I a pawn? Why does he hate me? Will he do it again? Will placated the girl before tending to his boyfriend’s fragile state as more ice grew around his heart.

“Do you want the honest truth?” Will sighs, bringing a hand up to push Nico’s hair behind his ear. He strokes Nico’s cheek with his thumb as Nico makes a noise of affirmation.

“I don’t know.” Will inhales. “I’d like to think so. Fuck, I’d like to think you’re never going to lose it completely. That you’ll keep up with your appointments with Mr. D. I’d like to think that you’ll overcome this.”

Something’s making a wet patch on Will’s shirt and causing Nico to shake in his arms. Will’s fighting tears himself, knowing that Nico needs to hear this.

“But I know you. And I know that you’d rather keep your problems to yourself because someone once told you that you aren’t worth the trouble. I know that you tend to sabotage yourself so you’ll never be happy, just in case it gets taken away.”

Nico’s sobs are muffled by Will’s chest but it doesn’t make each one hurt less.

“I can’t guarantee it, but damn it, Nico, I’ll be here until I can’t take it anymore. Can I ask something though?” And Will waits until Nico calms down enough to look at him.

“Can you please, no matter what, get to your meetings with Mr. D? Just because I’ll push myself through this, doesn’t mean that I want to.” Will feels the tears fall down his face and sees it on Nico’s. Nico doesn’t speak but he nods.

That night, Nico lashes out at him and tries to hurt him. Will tells himself it’ll be okay because that’s all he can do.

I thought we had a future, but we ain't got a chance in hell

It starts looking up and Will thinks more and more that Nico can do this. He sees Nico slip into the Big House regularly and sees him start to sit with Dionysus at meals. He sees Nico make real progress. He has less breakdowns and Will starts smiling again.

Will knew it was too good to last.

The sun is setting on our love, I fear

Letting our loneliness out into the atmosphere

Will startles out of sleep as he feels a weight settle on his chest. His eyes open and he’s looking into dark, glossy eyes above him. He takes in the blade pressed against his throat and bites back a whimper.

“Nico.” He whispers. Nico’s crying and he wants to reach out and wipe the tears away.

“Nico.” He says softly. The blade presses into him. He quiets down. He assesses the situation. Judging by the position of the moonlight, he guesses it’s about four in the morning. Nico’s holding his left arm down with his hand and his right arm is pinned under Nico’s knee.

“Where is he?” Nico hisses. Will looks back to his love’s crazed look.

“Who?” Will whispers. Nico scoffs.

“Damasen. I know you know where his lair is. I need to get there and I will kill anything I need to.” Nico spits out. Will thinks about how to handle this. If he answers, Nico may just kill him, no longer needing the information he thinks he needs. If he doesn’t comply, Nico could kill him anyways. There was only one plan Will could figure out.

“I can take you there. It’s really hard for a mortal to try to get to.” Will says slowly. He watches Nico process the answer and prays to any deity listening.

“Fine, but one wrong move and I swear…” Nico whispers. He climbs off Will and Will slowly sits up. He’s only in a t-shirt and boxers but damn it all if he bends over to find pants. He stands with his hands raised and walks out the Hades cabin door. Nico follows him, still in his illusion. Will glances up and sees he’s right. It’s just after four in the morning. He leads Nico to the Big House and stops at the base of the porch.

“This is him, just knock on the door.” Will says. Nico eyes him like he doesn’t trust him and continues to watch him as he walks up the stairs and knocks on the door. Will knows he should feel something seeing his love glare at him like he’s trash. But in all honesty, Will feels nothing. The door opens. Will doesn’t have the time to explain and Nico drops his sword.

“Nico.” Is all Dionysus says as Nico curls in on himself. Will doesn’t bend down next to him. He only walks up the porch and explain to Mr. D what happened. He feels Nico’s pleading eyes on him as he talks and he has nothing in his mind to say.

“I didn’t .” Nico whispers, horrified at himself. Will just looks at him blankly. “Holy shit, Will, I’m- There’s nothing I can say to make this better. I’m so sorry.”

Dionysus brings them both inside and sits them in front of the fireplace, Nico’s Stygian sword sitting in the attic for now. He’s left them to make tea. It’s silent between the two lovers and Will knows the growing ravine between them is too large.

“Have you been going?” Will asks quietly. Nico doesn’t answer. Will looks up at him, making sure he hadn’t gone into another episode, but Nico’s staring at his shaking hands.

“I tried.”

“How long?” Will’s tired. He’s so exhausted running in these circles.

“Two weeks.”

“Two weeks.” Will repeats. “Nico, I can’t do this.”

“Will, please, if it’s about tonight, we’ll stop sleeping together.”

“It’s not just tonight. It’s not even about me being in danger. It’s about how every time I see you in the mornings, I ask if today’s going to have another episode. It’s about me being in the infirmary, wondering if any of the campers that come in are going to be from you. It’s about the many times you’ve told me you’ll stop hurting yourself and making yourself fail but then you turn around and do it again. It’s about knowing that the longer I stay around, the more I’ll lose myself. It’s about looking at you and seeing you not even being on the plane of existence. It’s about not putting myself through torture because I love you, Nico. I love you so fucking much and I’m losing myself trying to save you. I’ve lost so much weight, it’s considered unhealthy. I’m jumpy when we’re together because I’m waiting for it. I’m not sleeping, I’m not even really living anymore. We’ve both become ghosts, Nico. And I’m sure you’re trying your hardest, I don’t doubt that. But it’s not enough and I’m not enough to fix it.” Will’s crying, no he’s sobbing. His breathing is ragged and he’s swallowing against the lump in his throat waiting for Nico to respond with something.

“You’re right.” Nico finally looks up at him and Will, for as long as he lives, will never forget the look on his face. “You’re absolutely right. I’m broken and I’m not doing what I should about it and we’re too young to handle this. I’m sorry it came to this. I’m sorry we’re not enough. I’m sorry that we moved too fast.”

“So, what now?”

“For one, we break up.”

Will inhales sharply. He knows that’s what needs to be done. He knows that’s what’s the most healthy and what’s most likely to salvage their friendship. But it still cuts through him like a hot knife.

“We break up.”

“And I’ll move into the Big House. I’ll work more closely to Mr. D. And if I get through it, maybe one day, we’ll be able to be friends again.”

“That sounds like a great idea.” Will says. The ice that had been wrapping its way around his heart for the last five months hadn’t gone away and with Nico’s last words, it shattered inside of him.

“The sun is setting on our love, but I will always keep you with me, Will Solace. I’ll always love you.” Nico stands up and leans down, pressing one final kiss to Will’s lips and then leaves for the basement room.

“I can keep you updated on his progress, if you’d like.” Mr. D stands in the doorway to the kitchen. Will stands up and shakes his head.

“He’ll either be better or he won’t. And he’ll tell me when he is.” With those last words, Will leaves the Big House, his chest both heavier and lighter than it had been in the last year and a half. That morning, he breaks. He sobs into his pillow, on his sister’s shoulder and all throughout breakfast that he didn’t attend. He makes a final trip to the Hades cabin and collects the last item he has there. The one item he didn’t take back because he still had hope. He picks up the tiny Apollo mythomagic statue and instead of taking it to his cabin, he takes it to the Hephaestus cabin. He asks Harley if he could make it a small, flat metal token and after it’s pressed down, he punches a hole in it and laces it on his necklace of beads. One last reminder of the boy who loved him and lost his mind.

The tide is turning on our chance to turn it 'round

I never thought I'd see my fingernails fall out

Love isn't in the air, love isn't in the air

#solangelo #pjo #sam writes #written listening to the bring me the horizon song by the same name

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black-wolf066 · 4 years

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An Au where Five dies young in the apocalypse.

(((I originally wanted this to be something more happy-ish, despite the Au idea, but my Muse demanded angst; so angst it shall have. Warnings for the general Klaus-ness of... well Klaus (he's my favorite of them all so I’m not hating on him, but we all know the warnings that come tagged with his name by now) as well as mild language and again angst.

This story is posted over on my Ao3 account under the same pen name (blackwolf066) I would link but due to people posting phishing links, I'm weary to do so. The story is called [Not an End of All, Only an End of Something])))

Klaus is not quite twenty-four, just a little over a year before the inevitable publishing of Vanya's book, when Five pops up out of the blue. And at the worst possible moment too as Klaus OD's on the ground of some seedy alleyway.

When he wakes up in the back of an ambulance, he thinks it was all just one big twisted hallucination. But then he looks over the EMT's shoulder and sees a glaring, near murderous Ben, which is not an uncommon sight at all considering where he landed himself (again). No, it's the pale figure standing beside Ben, a very rattled and pale ghost with the face of little number Five and--

"Well, shit."

Is all he can really articulate.

Ben just glares harder.

After coming to grips with it (he will never come to grips with it) and after hearing Five's sad tale; he seeks out the rest of their living siblings.

Really, he shouldn't have even bothered.

Much like how no one believed Klaus about Ben in the beginning, they sure as hell don't believe him about Five, or the bullshit he spits about the apocalypse being real (courtesy of Five telling him and Ben what all had happened after he disappeared). Klaus truly believes his brother's story, the proof of it clear enough on his ghostly corpse. The layer of soot that was too ashy and grey to really be grime. The slight wheeze to Five's words even though the boy was dead and no longer needed air. The hollowness of his cheeks and the clothes that hung too big on his too small, bony frame.

It’s a scary thought, to know that all of humanity rests on Klaus' shoulders; and all because none of his siblings could be bothered to give Klaus the time of day.

"We're all doomed." Five puts eloquently.

Klaus hisses at him, but he knows Five is right. He's the last person anyone should put their faith in and yet Five didn't have much of a choice.

Klaus didn't need the reminder.

Nor did he sign up for this shit.

(None of them did, not Ben and surely not poor little number Five, who Klaus still has a hard time keeping long bouts of eye contact with; the image of his too small brother and the clear suffering he had gone through, far worse than when Ben had appeared all bloody and shadowed in the corner of his room at Seventeen).

Meanwhile the Commission are left scratching their heads and wondering what in the hell happened. What killed Five in the first place? Was it the starvation that did him in; or the ashy air that caused his lungs to stop filling altogether? Or was it the expired Twinkie that was the straw that broke the camel’s back?

(They don't dwell on it for long. What will be will be and all that jazz)

With two nagging brothers instead of one, Klaus has a harder time chasing and keeping his continued highs. Though he doesn't want this responsibility, would rather sit back and watch the world burn during his lower moments of weakness; Klaus finds, much like Five, that he doesn't have much of a choice either.

(The disappointment on anyone's face had always been a natural state in regards to Klaus. He was the family fuck up after all, the useless number out of the lot of them; and that included Vanya. He was used to it by now, but to see that disappointment on his kid brother, hurt more than he'd ever like to admit aloud).

So he gets clean, or clean enough, no longer allowed to go for the harder stuff (the topic of Sobriety is a fight Ben and Five realize they will never win). Klaus needs something if he's to do this with his sanity still intact, the ghosts are just too damn loud, too unpredictable and too uncontrollable (not like he could ever control them in the first place) to really go full on cold turkey.

At least it's a start in the right direction, so Ben and Five will take whatever they can get at this point.

With no leads other than a glass eyeball no longer in Five's possession, there isn't much Klaus can really do but wait for nightfall and break into the Meritech facility; a company he had never even heard of (until that day) that apparently the eyeball originated from ("Obviously it came from there, Klaus, pay attention!"). With Ben and Five acting as his lookout and scout respectively (to warn of any security wandering the building as well as to point out all the cameras to duck around and avoid), it doesn't take Klaus long to find the file room, but none of the files on hand have the serial number Five rattles off and they're back to square one.

Between the span of the next six years, the harbinger of death will lose an eye and none of them know when exactly that will happen or who said harbinger will be.

And life continues on.

Klaus manages to get a job despite his record, and even a small apartment to live in. It's a shitty little studio in an even shittier part of town. It's all he can really afford, but it's the home he made for himself and his brothers and he couldn't ask for much more.

Vanya publishes her book, and though Klaus silently cheers on her ballsyness (even--deep down--understands why she did in it the first place) he would have liked it better had she not callously attacked him like she did everyone else. He debates on using the damn thing for kindling in the fireplace, but somehow can't bring himself to do it; not when it's the only picture he has of his sister despite the betrayal he feels burning in his chest.

It sits collecting dust on the bookshelf instead.

Then one day Vanya randomly appears in their ghostly midst and Klaus is honest to god ready to throw hands.

"You know this is not what I ever had in mind about getting the four-corner squad back together again." Klaus mumbles.

"There never was a 'four-corner' squad," Five grunts, "You always just invited yourself along anyway."

Fair, Klaus thinks, and smirks faintly at the twin smacks that resound in the apartment from Ben and Vanya hitting Five's arms. The little gremlin’s hissing as he threatens and dares them to do something like that ever again, do nothing to lighten the fact that Vanya is still very much dead and standing in the middle of his apartment.

"It would explain why I never found Ben or Vanya among the rest of your bodies." Five states sometime after Vanya is filled in on the whole stopping the world from ending shin ding.

Klaus doesn't ever meet her eyes the entire time they talk; skirting around the guilt laden looks she keeps shooting in his direction upon learning he was speaking the truth this whole damn time.

(Meanwhile the commission is scrambling to right this wrong, and they almost go back to save their bomb from getting hit by that car, until they realize the apocalypse is still happening)

Which is fitting, really, that where Vanya ends the world the first time, it's Klaus that ends it the second time (the commission just don't know it quite yet).

And god doesn't that just suck to know he was the cause of his brother's suffering, even if the whole damn thing was nothing more than an accident.

Reginald still kicked the bucket (ding dong the abusive bastard’s dead). Harold still somehow managed to get his hands on the damn journal and was still hellbent on getting his vengeance against the umbrella academy; even without Vanya by his side.

With his living siblings distracted in their fight against Harold and the commission (still believing that Harold is the fuse somehow in all this chaos), Klaus is still kidnapped, tortured and forced to go cold turkey (but this time it's because he knows too much, Hazel and Cha Cha being sent out to find out how Klaus even knew about the apocalypse in the first place). He still gets saved in the end, still ends up back in time alone, fighting in a war because he was too scared to use the briefcase again and end up somewhere far worse. He still gains and then loses the love of his life (his Dave, his everything). Still dies, talks to dear old daddy and comes back--to the land of the living where his dead siblings all hover worriedly around him.

And all of this spirals with Klaus being absolutely and utterly done with everyone's shit: with the added scary bonus of secondary powers he didn't realize he even had (nor can control) due to said cold turkey experience.

In the end Harold really was the fuse, and the world is ended because his ghostly siblings couldn't penetrate the fog of Klaus' panic attack to calm him down (a panic attack induced by a mix of PTSD, the complete lack of faith his living siblings still have in him, and the resulting battle that ensues as Harold strikes the mansion).

His already uncontrollable telekinesis goes ballistic when the mansion explodes from C-4 Harold had planted around the block. He doesn't see the fighting that results from it, he doesn't see Luther rip Harold's eye out either (an eye he gained from pissing off the wrong people at the wrong time in his incarceration). All he hears is the fighting, the loud explosions, and the crumbling of the building around him. All he can smell is the smoke. All he can feel is the heat of the flames as they begin to lick teasingly at his skin and before he knows it, he finds himself back in that god forsaken jungle.

And so, ends all of ‘something’.

it's not a moon chunk to end everything in a fiery blaze of death, but an earthquake as Klaus' power unintentionally shifts the tectonic plates enough to set off every volcano in the world (dormant or otherwise).

Oh well.

C'est la vie

What will be, will be.

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stevenuniversallyreviews · 4 years

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Episode 131: Off Colors

“And this is Lars. He’s all human.”

Forty-seven seconds is an eternity in an eleven-minute episode. Steven and the Stevens (the song) is forty-one. The final scene of Winter Forecast, my favorite in the series, is an even thirty. And when Pearl first poofs in Steven the Sword Fighter, it may take her several weeks in-universe to come back, but it’s only seventeen seconds until Amethyst and Garnet reveal that she’s okay.

Off Colors ends with Lars at his finest, bouncing around from friend to friend to save their lives from an alien drone, culminating in a brave, goofy rodeo show on the robotic menace. He comically yelps as the machine bucks and sprays lasers everywhere, then the baker who was once terrified of letting people try his food yells “Eat this!” as he deals the final blow, solidifying the cartoonish victory we’ve seen time and time again in action shows for kids. But then the drone explodes, and it kills him.

Laramie Barriga, the first person we ever see Steven speak with, the first human who’s ever named on the show, a depressed grouch that has resisted every opportunity to grow but can’t help growing anyway, who after countless false starts has finally seen his inner hero emerge, dies a sudden, violent death. And he remains dead for forty-seven seconds.

False deaths abound in Steven Universe, from Pearl’s aforementioned poofing to the Pink Diamond faking her own shattering. But none feel as visceral as Lars’s, because it isn’t false. He not only dies, but we see his lifeless body tumble to the ground like a rag doll, and must linger with him as the weight of his death settles in. The Off Colors are jubilant at their victory, and their cheers create the discordant atmosphere that so often accompanies death, the shock and confusion as life goes on even as another life ends. Steven is the only person on the planet who understands that humans don’t die the same way Gems do, and he doesn’t need to say a word as he grasps for signs of life and finds none.

According to interviews with the crew, there was some question over when the episode would end, and whether this death would be a cliffhanger. I’m so glad they went with this approach, and not because I think it would be too brutal for young viewers (I was raised on Don Bluth and The Lion King, kids can handle it); reviving him in the next episode would be a pacing nightmare, but reviving him here forces that uninterrupted wait, a moment that can’t be escaped by the episode ending and focusing on something else until the next one comes on. Plus, I’d imagine it helped with the censors to have him come back in the same scene, because I’ve never seen a children’s show portray death with this much physical realism; in the rare instance of a character dying on-screen, it’s always a dramatic affair with a final speech and a last gasp, but Lars is dead before he hits the floor.

The other reason Lars’s death stands out is that even if it’s temporary, it’s permanent. The rules of Steven’s inherited revival powers aren’t examined too deeply, but it’s clear that Lars is no longer mortal in the way he once was. He’s pink, with white hair. He barely has a heartbeat. If he’s anything like Lion, there’s a chance he’ll never age. This and more will be covered in Lars’s Head, but even now, it’s clear that the Lars we knew died on a cold and foreign world, and it’s another Lars that wakes up.

There’s obviously more to Off Colors than Lars’s death, considering the episode is named for the new set of characters that we spend most of our runtime meeting. But its very first line, after another stylish pan down from the title card, is “Lars, are you okay?” Much like The Good Lars appears to be a Lars episode but ends up being about Sadie, Off Colors appears to be an Off Colors episode but ends up being about Lars. Every moment he’s on screen is a reminder that he’s an alien on Homeworld, from his earthly need for food to his battle plans adopted from Jurassic Park to his vital lack of a gem. Even before he literally changes color, he fits right in with the misfits.

But let’s not cut the Off Colors short. It isn’t easy to introduce four distinct characters at once, so each gets a quirk to make them stand out fast. The Rutile Twins have two heads that paraphrase each other. Rhodonite fuses the nervousness we’ve seen from rubies and Pearl into a whole new level of perpetual fear. Fluorite speaks in the deep, slow voice of a six-Gem fusion. And, of course, Padparadscha has visions of the recent past, a running gag that I don’t predict I’ll ever get tired of.

Still, even in this first appearance, there’s more to this little family than their quirks. We meet the Rutiles first, voiced by Ashly Burch (one of the 2010s’ best new talents and the co-writer of my favorite latter-day Adventure Time episode, Hall of Egress), and despite a lifetime on the run their instinct is to help instead of hide. Rhodonite, voiced by Enuka Okuma (who like Padparadscha/Sapphire’s Erica Luttrell is a Canadian actress who started young and has steadily built up a considerable resume), doesn’t let her anxiety or societal pressure stop her from living as a fusion, which in a way makes her braver than the more confident Garnet. Fluorite, voiced by Kathy Fisher (primarily an EDM singer for the band Fisher) is proudly polyamorous and has a lot of grace for a giant caterpillar. Padparadscha, voiced by the aforementioned Luttrell...well, she pretty much is just her quirk, but she’s still a delight.

Given how many characters we meet and the amount of time we devote to Lars’s heroism and death, Off Colors can’t do much with its new characters besides introduce them. But the episode reveals their struggles not only with their words, but the setting they hid themselves in. Rather than spend any amount of time in the high tech environment of modern Homeworld (the place that reared the likes of Peridot and terrified Lapis Lazuli) we head straight to the ancient remains of perhaps the oldest Kindergarten in the universe, a massive chamber in a hollowed world without any more room to form new life.

Like Earth’s Prime Kindergarten, it’s a perfect place for horror, this time from a drone that’s so relentless that it kills one of our characters. The drone’s theme resembles the opening of the Love Like You reprise and Holly Blue Agate’s motif, adding another layer of looming alien danger to the atmosphere, and the machine itself has the vicious efficiency of Peridot’s old robonoids. The world is old, but the technology hunting the Off Colors down is new, lending the sense of an endless struggle that must be endured rather than overcome.

Life on Homeworld is dictated by doing what you were created to do, but it’s important to show that deviating from this path doesn’t lead to instant happiness. If Gems could break away from their oppression with ease, it wouldn’t be much of an oppressive state, so the Off Colors trade lives in constant servitude for lives in constant survival mode. It isn’t as if we needed more evidence that Gem society is a mess, but there’s power in personalizing how misfits are persecuted to this day, compared to how the Crystal Gems were able to form in the past. The struggles from back then remain the struggles of the present, and the only way to fix them is with an outside push. We won’t see that push until the end of the series proper, but are primed to understand the power of external changers from Blue Zircon’s own ability to stand outside of the story and punch holes in the narrative the characters took for granted. It’s no wonder that Steven is fated to do the same thing.

It’s refreshing to see Lars and Steven get along from the start, instead of going through the usual ornery motions until they reach the sense of understanding they had in Stuck Together. It makes sense that we’d cut to the chase in an episode with this much to do, but given how often Lars forgets his lessons, it’s a nice change of pace for his growth to stick.

Even more refreshing is Steven forgetting about his martyr complex for a moment as his own survival instincts take hold: we see him instead channel the leadership lesson he learned with Peridot in the drill, assuring Lars that everything will be okay even when it’s clear that he doesn’t believe it. This time it’s Lars who must deal the barriers he sets up for himself, railing against his own cowardice and needing Steven’s positivity in the same way Steven needed his negativity on the spaceship. When Lars shows signs of an imminent panic attack, Steven gives him the same hand to the heart we’ve seen in Lars and the Cool Kids and Lion 3 and tells him that it’s okay to be afraid, a line Lars repeats to psych himself up for his last stand.

Steven also forgets about Zircon’s big reveal, which initially seems like a negative. As viewers, we’re invested in learning the truth about Pink Diamond and are made to wait even longer to get more clues. But I see this as the beginning of a major step forward, because even though Steven is hardly over his issues with Rose, this is where he starts focusing on where his priorities should be: his life in the present, rather than his mother’s ancient past. In Off Colors and Lars’s Head it’s all about escaping Homeworld and helping Lars and his new friends, then it’s straight to the Breakup Arc, and both journeys recenter Steven in a way that lets him grow enough to reexamine Zircon’s information through fresher eyes.

And as complicated as his relationship with Rose has become, let’s not forget that this episode ends with the first instance of her healing tears emerging from her son. He’s had healing spit for ages, his own Steven-y take on his mom’s power, but he evokes her far more directly as he revives Lars with a method that solves a mystery we weren’t even thinking about as we entered Homeworld: the origin of Lion. But more on that next time.

For now, it’s enough to have a full-to-the-brim episode of new friends and tense drama, written and animated to punch you in the gut with a surprise death that feels no less powerful when it’s half-reversed. The Off Colors show us problems unique to Gems (Homeworld society, fusion stuff, malfunctioning psychic powers), and Lars shows us problems unique to humans (general physical frailty, from hunger to the inability to shrug off explosions), but both reach an understanding that makes their imminent team-up feel as natural as can be. Each of them lives in fear, and each of them learns that the only way to work past this fear is to accept it and work together to overcome it. I know that they can be strong in the real way, and they’re about to prove it.

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

The streak of Love ‘em episodes holds strong. What seems to be a pure set-up episode is blown up by its shocker of an ending, and while it may lead to yet another cliffhanger, there’s a sense of completion as Lars goes from cowering mess to genuine hero.

Top Twenty-Five

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

Last One Out of Beach City

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Mindful Education

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Earthlings

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Bismuth

Steven’s Dream

When It Rains

The Good Lars

Catch and Release

Chille Tid

I Am My Mom

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Alone at Sea

Crack the Whip

Beta

Back to the Moon

Kindergarten Kid

Buddy’s Book

Gem Harvest

Three Gems and a Baby

That Will Be All

The New Crystal Gems

Storm in the Room

Room for Ruby

Lion 4: Alternate Ending

Doug Out

Are You My Dad?

Stuck Together

The Trial

Off Colors

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Greg the Babysitter

Gem Hunt

Steven vs. Amethyst

Bubbled

Adventures in Light Distortion

Gem Heist

The Zoo

Rocknaldo

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

Know Your Fusion

Future Boy Zoltron

Tiger Philanthropist

No Thanks!

6. Horror Club 5. Fusion Cuisine 4. House Guest 3. Onion Gang 2. Sadie’s Song 1. Island Adventure

(Despite the header image looking very Sugary, there’s no official promo art; that lovely picture is actually from the wonderful ferryperson.)

#off colors #steven universe #su #steven universally #review

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writemywaytoyourheart · 5 years

Text

One → Two

a/n: guess who finally got a laptop mofos? when I say that this fic has given me grief.....I am in no way exaggerating,,,, but, the past is behind us! let’s just enjoy it now 😅 pls...I seriously hope y’all like this. technically it’s still Friday for some people ;) and I promise that the story will get better as we go along.

Pairing: Hoseok x Female Reader

Genre: angst, fluff

Warnings for this chapter: Mentions of alcohol consumption, a creeper dude, emotional abuse, insinuations of past sexual abuse, insinuations of self harm, language.

Word count: 3.7k

Trigger Warning: if you are easily triggered by this type of stuff, pls don't read it. I have some fluff on my account, you should enjoy that instead! Here's a link to my other works → BTS ML

Tag list: @melikeylikeyjimin

If you wanna be on the tag list, send me an ask or dm :)

Daisies in the Dark Masterlist

All stories have a beginning and all stories have an end.

But, how does one know where to start a story? And maybe, sometimes we don't want to know the end; since unfortunately, not all stories have a good finish. Perhaps we'd like to leave it unfinished and rewrite it in our minds, because all humans want a happy ending.

You're still reading so I guess you'd like to see for yourself how this story goes.

Have you ever heard the story of how the sun fell in love with the moon?

No?

Well, you're about to...

And I can't promise you that it's going to go the way you'd like.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

3 yrs before the incident

One more chance. I'll give her one more chance, you thought as you grit your teeth, watching your once best friend in the lunch line chatting it up with the annoying girl from history class.

Your breath caught in your throat when your former bff Lena made eye contact with you from across the cafeteria after filling her lunch tray. A small smile went to find it's way onto your face when Lena's eye contact lingered, but it was gone in a matter of seconds when she just twitched an eyebrow and sauntered off to sit at a table across the room; the conversation between Lena and her new bestie continuing as if nothing had happened.

So it was true, she'd left you for someone else. Like you were worth nothing more to that girl than a tissue; use it once and throw it away. Not a very good comparison at the time, but that's all you could think of as you watched them sit down; you were worth no more than a small used tissue.

Figures...

Your hands started to twitch awkwardly not knowing what to do with themselves now and you stared at the lasagna on your lunch tray; if you could even call it that–all it was was a lump of overcooked noodles drenched in sauce the color of a burnt tomato with who knows what posing as the ground beef, covered in a crispy layer of cheese.

You definitely weren't hungry, but staring at the sad excuse for lunch in front of you and contemplating life as nothing more than a wisp of a tissue floating through the air, not knowing where it might end up–was better than watching Lena start a new chapter without you.

It didn't make sense, you were best friends...weren't you? Guess it didn't matter now, since a friendship takes two people to make it work, and seeing as one was currently occupied elsewhere, you would have to make do with what you had, which was...a depressed piece of lasagna staring at you from it's home on the untouched tray. You poked at it with your fork and looked at it-thinking. Then you whispered to the disheartening meal,

"Oh well...at least you're not gonna leave me for that annoying- what was her name? I don't even know, but who cares, right?"

Then you suddenly realized what you were doing and looked up quickly in embarrassment, afraid someone had seen you. But the regular drone of kids talking, shouting and laughing was the same as always. Of course no one had noticed, because you were invisible.

And you were talking to a piece of lasagna.

Highschool was great....

You were a senior this year, at seventeen. At least this was the last year of hell, then you could do whatever you wanted. You had a lot of things you wanted to do and places to travel to, maybe you couldn't do them all but you'd be damned if you didn't at least try.

But one thing was for sure, you couldn't just sit there and stare at that fake lasagna pretending like Lena wasn't betraying you right across the room. So you got up and brought your uneaten food to the window where kids leave their empty lunch trays and put your tray down, but kept the small carton of chocolate milk. Then headed out of the cafeteria to spend the rest of your lunchbreak in the library. You fiddled with the unopened milk carton and mumbled to yourself while you walked,

"It's fine, I don't need her anyway."

Just numb the pain.

That wasn't the first or the last time.

2 yrs before the incident

"Uhhh, ya know what little missy? I think if you give me twenty-five percent off everything, maybe we could come to a compromise?"

This man......was going to die in a minute if he kept going on like this.

You tried your hardest not to just scream at this pervert to leave and say you wouldn't do a damn thing for him. You just settled for licking your dry lips while he started to smirk at you. He brought his hand up to rest against the counter, then started to slowly tap his fingers. You made eye contact with him and said sternly, "I'm sorry sir, but I can't do that."

"What if I give you my phone number? And we'll make it fifteen percent..." He tried again, not once breaking eye contact with you.

"Excuse me sir-"

"Yes, doll?"

"Do you have a coupon?"

"No, I don't bu-"

"Then no, we can't move the price down at all, would you like to pay the full price or leave sir?" You stared him dead in the eyes, this creep, you thought angrily, how dare he call me that? I hope he just leaves, I don't care if he doesn't buy anything. The man leaned over the cash register, "hmm, this isn't very good customer service. Maybe I won't come back." Please don't, you thought, but instead of saying that you settled for, "it's not about customer service, this is store policy, I'm sorry sir but I can't do anything."

"Ya know what? I like it when you call me sir- you say that a lot to me....what's a pretty little lady like you doing working in a rundown grocery store, hm? What about college? You're what, eighteen? If you'd like, I can give you my number and you won't have to worry about this job, I'll take care of you." He smirked and arched an eyebrow at you from the other side of the counter.

It was probably a good thing there was a big cash register between the two of you, since you weren't sure what would've happened if you had free range. By now your brain was just blurry and you saw nothing but blackness because of the fury settling inside. What a disgusting man. You didn't care if you got fired, you were gonna teach him a lesson or two about trying to get young girls to do stuff for him in exchange for money. You leaned forward which made him lean back in surprise, then you said loud enough for the other people in line to hear,

"If you do not pay the full price right here right now, then leave. If you think I'm looking for a sugar daddy then you are sadly mistaken. You have enough money to pay for a girl's life in exchange for your own personal services, so you have enough to pay the full thirty five dollars. There are people waiting behind you so make up your mind now, sir." You said the last word mockingly and raised an eyebrow at him in defiance. The man's eyes grew in shock, then he glared at you but he didn't say a word as he threw forty bucks in your direction, grabbed his bags and stomped out of the store.

You took a deep breath and smiled at the next customer who cautiously came forward with their items.

The second you stepped through the door after working a twelve hour shift you slumped against the wall and yanked your sneakers off; dropping them to the floor carelessly. The apartment was dark so you assumed your mom wasn't home- probably out drinking away her troubles again. Walking into the kitchen, you sighed at the sink full of dirty dishes, and the counters that were no better. The smell wasn't too bad, probably because your nose was used to it by now. You walked to a cupboard and rummaged around until you found a sleeve of saltine crackers. After that you grabbed the softened butter and a knife and walked to your room; stepping over and around the miscellaneous junk spread throughout the apartment.

After about an hour of sitting on your bed, scrolling through your phone and munching on what your dinner was that night, you heard the door open and what you could only assume was your mother stumble inside. Your mother's heels clacked against the hard floor by the door, then a heavier pair of footsteps could be heard with them. You sighed deeply, but stayed as quiet as you could. Not again, you thought miserably. Just, please just go do whatever you're gonna do and leave me alone, you prayed silently squeezing your eyes shut.

There was a lot of stumbling and cursing and your chest was tight with anxiety, scared that at any moment they would drunkenly come into your room by accident. Eventually, your mother's bedroom door slammed shut and you let out the breath you had been holding. Thank you God, thank you, you clasped your hands and shook them, then carefully and as quietly as you could, you set the remaining crackers and butter on your nightstand. Then you shifted in bed to lie on your left side and tried to make sure the bed didn't creak at your movements– cringing a little when it squeaked a bit. It was gonna be alright, he–whoever he was, didn't know you were in the house.

You closed your eyes and tried to ignore the lingering feeling on your skin, even though it had been over a year since the last time. You stuffed your hands over your ears, willing yourself to sleep despite whatever was going on on the other side of the wall.

Morning came all too soon, and with it a massive pounding headache from the lack of sleep. You groaned when the sun hit your eyes and made the darkness an annoying shade of orangey red from behind your eyelids, your brain in a fog from the tiny bit of sleep you were able to get even though it was plagued by nightmares. Then you suddenly snapped awake and shot up in bed, grabbing your chest and feeling all around yourself frantically, breathing a sigh of relief when you felt your shirt still on your body. You were okay, it was just another nightmare. You tried to steady your breathing while taking deep breaths in and blowing them out slowly. Then you looked towards the door and cupped a hand by your ear; listening intently. After a minute or two of silence that didn't really prove anything, you sighed and swung your legs out of bed- planting your feet on the floor despite laundry being scattered everywhere. Sneaking towards the door you put an ear to it then slowly turned the knob. Normally you wouldn't even be risking going out of the safety of your room but you really had to pee, you would just have to be quick.

You scurried quietly to the bathroom and when you were finished you were on your way back when your mom's door swung open. You flinched and wrung your hands keeping your eyes downcast, too afraid to look up. But then you sighed in relief when it was only your mother that pushed past you to go to the bathroom. You decided to risk it and peeked into your mom's bedroom. A weight lifted off your chest at the sight of the empty bed–he must have left earlier.

"Aren't you supposed to be working or something? Why're you just sitting around reading?" Your mother scoffed at you from the doorway, after slamming your bedroom door open to confront you.

You set your book down–not ready for another fight, "they gave me today off, I'm back on the schedule tomorrow." Your mother just glared at you and crossed her arms, "oh, so you think we can afford to have you lying around, taking days off? Lazy ass." With that she turned and slammed the door shut, leaving you to sit there and scold your heart to stop hurting, because it just wasn't worth it.

You don't need her Y/n...

Just numb the pain.

So that's what you did.

1 1/2 yrs before the incident

You walked into the apartment after three classes in a row; each one being about two hours long. You dropped your backpack by the door with a thud then changed your mind and picked it up again, not wanting another fight when someone tripped over it in their drunken state. You decided just putting it in your room would be best.

Canned vegetables with canned chicken really wasn't too bad if one could figure out the right stuff to put in it. After years of this, you had discovered your favorite seasonings and you were mixing yourself up a nice concoction for lunch before going to work, humming and talking to yourself as you did so–when there was loud pounding on the front door.

You weren't very alarmed, knowing exactly who it was, and so you opened the door and stepped aside as your mother staggered in, thankfully alone. Turning to look at you, your mother's eyes were a bit glassy as she spoke, "is there any food around here or do I have to do all the work for that too?" She wasn't drunk, but she wasn't too far away from it. You didn't say anything and just walked to the kitchen, took your lunch and handed it to your mother.

"I just made this for you, thought you'd be home soon."

Your mom just snatched it away and walked to her room calling over her shoulder, "almost nineteen years old and all you can do is make a half-assed meal for the woman that gave up everything for your lazy ass."

You just grabbed your bag and put your shoes on, trying to ignore the insistent hunger pangs in your stomach, then walked out the door for work.

"Y/n? May I speak with you please?" It was the next day and you were just leaving the history classroom when your professor called you over. Your grades were far from satisfactory, but you really did try. You walked over to Professor Kim's (who also happened to teach your Korean class as well) desk and tried not to hang your head, since you knew what was coming. She was a nice lady, but could also be strict at times.

"Y/n, I'm going to get straight to the point. I heard that you wanted to travel to South Korea. We both know you're struggling a bit in the academic department, but I know you're a good girl, and you speak Korean pretty well."

You looked up, utterly confused, this wasn't about you almost failing history class? Professor Kim just smiled and continued, "there is a scholarship program to go and stay in Seoul for a year, learning Korean and going to the university there. I thought you might be interested in it."

You were so shocked you couldn't speak for a full minute, just stuttering out nonsense until Professor Kim laughed and put her hand on your shoulder. Then she handed you a packet, telling you to fill it out and give it back to her as soon as possible.

This couldn't be happening. Good things didn't happen to you. Could this actually be your escape?

You thanked Professor Kim over and over then scurried out of the room before anything else could be said and possibly destroy this amazing opportunity. As you left there was a new lift to your step.

Two weeks had passed and no word from the scholarship people. You turned nineteen in those two weeks, but that didn't mean much to you. All you could think about was the scholarship. Things at home didn't change, they never did. Until one day when you were heading home from work, completely exhausted, and you saw the mailman at the front door knocking. You ran up the steps but your mother opened the door right when you got there. You said hello to the man and took the mail from him, being our to thank him. When you turned to go inside, your mother snatched all the mail from you and stalked off. You followed her cautiously, "uh, may I see that? I think I might have gotten something." Your mother turned and glared at you then spat, "and what could you have gotten in the mail? You don't even have friends, and the bills are in my name." You tried not to roll your eyes, even though the bills were in your mother's name, she wasn't the one paying them.

Scanning through the envelopes, your mother stopped when she saw one with the name Y/n Y/l/n on the front. She turned and looked at you accusingly, "what is this?" Before you had time to even process what you were doing you snatched the envelope out of her hands and dashed around her, running to your room. You shut the door and locked it, hearing the woman outside screaming horrible accusations and threats at you but not caring a single bit. The envelope was white–super white actually, almost looking unnatural. Your fingers shook as you gently tore it open, running a finger carefully along the top so you could pull the letter out. The paper inside was just as bright, and the bold black lettering stood out.

Your breathing hitched, was this actually happening? A second scan over the letter and a quick yet painful pinch to the arm confirmed that, yes, this was actually happening. Your hands trembled as you slowly pulled your phone out of your pocket and carefully typed in the number printed on the paper. The sounds of your mother screaming outside the door and hitting it, the cars outside, your own heart pounding in your ears- it all faded away to a dull thudding when you heared the ringing through the phone, once, twice, you held your breath, three rings in, four......click

"Hello? This is Jill Dunning, how can I help you?"

"H-hello? I- I was told to call you."

"Are you Y/n Y/l/n, by any chance?"

You cleared your throat nervously, then took a deep breath before answering.

"Yes, I am."

1 month later

The flight there was extremely long and tiring so by the time you were getting off; you could’ve cried tears of joy, having felt like the plane ride really was going to last forever and you’d never step on solid ground again. But there you were; standing in the middle of the Seoul airport, completely and utterly free.

Not to mention, completely and utterly lost.

You looked around but couldn’t see anything other than a lot of people rushing around; businessmen and women, families with little children that stared at you with wide eyes, college students; and yet not a single soul that looked like they might help you find who you were looking for. You shifted your heavy backpack and decided to walk a bit, maybe you could find where the luggage came through and you could at least collect the rest of your bags. After you walked for another minute you saw a sign with a suitcase on it, hanging from the ceiling with an arrow pointing down. You hurried over to where it was pointing and saw a giant metal thing with suitcases going around on it, people looking at tags and grabbing them before hurrying off again.

You walked over briskly and just in time too, because your two suitcases had just come around the bend in the giant machine. You double checked the tags and after confirming they were yours, you heaved them off the machine and caught your breath after setting them next to you. Then you had to figure out where you were and where your roommate, who was to be picking you up, was. You went to the name of your roommate in your contacts and pressed it before you held your phone to your ear. After one ring, the sweet voice of your roommate answered in Korean.

“Hello? Y/n?”

“Hey Eui, I just got here and I’m so lost. I just got my bags.”

“I’m so sorry Y/n! I’ll be there in less than five minutes. Traffic was awful, but I’m walking into the airport now. Just stay by the baggage area, ok?”

”Ok, thanks Eui.”

You had talked to her on the phone many times over the past four weeks and you really liked her, you couldn’t wait to meet in person. You hung up and looked around, watching everyone else go about their days; rushing to catch flights, leisurely browsing the shops in the airport, then you heard an excited squeal and turned to see a girl running and jumping into the arms of a boy who you assumed was her boyfriend. You just smiled and kept looking around- trying not to think about how badly you wished that was you.

“Y/n?”

You turned at the sound of Eui’s voice and smiled widely when she approached you with open arms. Eui wrapped her arms around you and then pulled away, still smiling, “welcome to Seoul, are you ready to start over?” That had to be the best sentence you ever heard in your life. You smiled back at her and grabbed one of your suitcases while Eui grabbed the other one.

“Definitely.”

And you were; a new place, a new school, a friendly face, and no people from your past. It was time to start over and let things go, because life just got a whole lot easier.

You had no idea that whether you liked it or not, your past would continue to haunt you, no matter how many miles away you ran.

“Let’s go.”

Preview → Next

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slothgiirl · 6 years

Text

blinding part 6 (a theo raeken story)

mariella gallagher, lydia’s younger cousin, has always had a soft spot for theo raeken, and now that they’ve brought him back to help, she can’t seem to help herself when it comes to him. it also doesn’t help that she’s slowly losing her grip on whatever powers she has as an empath.

ao3 // part 1 // part 2 // part 3 // part 4 // part 5

Liam looks over at me, “Mari, get behind me. If anything happens,” his eyes full of worry, none of the bitterness from earlier because at the end of the day the bond between us all, between pack, meant more then anything.

We’d spend hours after school with the whole pack together, feeling stupid as we traced Scott’s pack symbol into the dirt, laughing at how serious and solemn Scott had been then. It had worked to his credit.

We’d talked and laughed and things had felt good, had felt back to normal again, stronger than that because we’d been tested once more and survived, all the stronger for it.

Bone heals stronger after it breaks, and so had we.

“Don’t say that,” I says, lips drawn, “nothings going to happen.”

“But if it does,” he says grimly, no longer the dumb teenager who jumped off his roof and into the pool because if he missed he’d heal, “run.”

“Okay.”

He nods and walks to the door, placing himself between me and the ghost riders, Theo’s face impassive as he watches the corridor. My mind instinctively reach for him, the hard and sharp sting of jealousy and longing bleeding through despite his best efforts.

On anyone else it would be imperceptible, but he’s such a blank slate anything that manages to slip by stands out.

He still wants a pack, the wolf in him lonely, the human in him just wanting to belong after so long.

“So what’s the plan,” Theo says, without ceremony.

“We rush them and run for it,” Liam says, more of a question then statement.

“I really hate your plans.”

“Shut up Theo.”

They wordlessly move the metal table into position and I can’t help the sharp bitter feeling that coils in my chest at my lack of ability to help, to do anything in a fight. Always reliant on others to do the fighting for me.

It wasn’t too bad when it was Lydia or Mason, both more brain and cunning that more then evened the odds, but even Stiles went around kicking up a fuss when overpowered.

I had none of their ability to figure things out, to take all the pieces and help in a real tangible way. I hated it.

The slight metallic clang of spurs sounds across the linoleum floor and Theo and Liam tense up, both their bodies ready to spring into action.

They’re all too empty and cold to sense how many there might be outside, blending into each other, none of the million little quirks that distinguished one persons happiness from another’s joy.

A ghost rider comes to a still outside the doors and the boys burst through, ramming the ghost rider into the wall and knocking it out cold. Its unconsciousness feels no different from its awakened state, sending a chill running down my spine.

One goes down and another four take its place.

“Time to run,” I mutter, walking backwards, not wiling to let them out of my eyesight as they filled my bones with ice, “again.”

“Hide with the dead,” Theo says, already taking a step back.

Liam turns, breaking into a run and pulling me with him, “it was worth a try,” his hand iron around my wrist as he shoves me around the corner and into safety, Theo on our heels.

Gunshots ring out behind us, the whooshing sound filling the hall as they explode on contact.

Liam waits until they reach us, just as they’re turning to launch himself claws first at them, tackling the first one he can to the ground and bolting up, a shot narrowly missing his head as he turns to face the next ghost rider, the one on the floor already getting up.

Theo cocks his head over at me before following suit, ghost of a smile on his lips and for a second I believe he can take them all before he throws the ghost rider taking aim at Liam against a wall.

I push my hands into my temples as the throbbing pain that rises whenever they appear surges once more, threatening to split my head open, the numbing pain emanating from my head.

Goosebumps appear on my arms as I try to imagine a wall, building it slowly, laying a layer of brick, pressing in the motor between each piece.

My name is Mariella Gallagher.

I am seventeen years old.

My name is Mariella Gallagher.

My cousin is Lydia Martin.

I live in Beacon Hills.

My name is-

I look up into the barrel of a gun, the ghost rider clicking off the safety and I let go, the hands clutching my skull relaxing their hold on my hair. Ice in my veins, numb, and peer right up at it.

Feeling as raw and empty as the ghost rider appeared, a black mirror.

It turned, face sliding from mine as Theo grabs a hold of it, dragging it away-away from. . .me? I shake my head, caching my breathe as I watch, everything playing out in front of me, feeling disconnected.

No sounds, no smells, nothing.

My head tilting as I see but can’t comprehend, threads of thought evaporating as soon as I try and tie them together. Nothing.

Nothing.

I feel scrubbed raw and bloody, head lightheaded the way I always do after a long cry.

Liam and Theo lock the ghost riders into a room but even the colors seem leeched from the world. Everything that happens. . .I feel disconnected, pulled away from the . . .my body isn’t real?

Movements slow, air thick like. . .honey. . .I could blow away like smoke in the air. Blow far far away.

East of sun and west of moon.

“El,” someone calls distantly. “El?”

I peer at a girl, eyes vacant as she stands still. A boy’s hand on her cheek as he turns her chin towards him.

I think that was-is. . .

“huh,” I ask, looking wildly around.

“Stay with me El,” Theo whispers.

“They’re everywhere,” Liam notes, looking curiously at us while he listened as best as he was able to, tracking the ghost riders movements on different floors.

“Good,” I note. One less thing for Lydia and Scott to worry about. They’d remember Stiles and Malia and Kira could take any wayward ghost riders that hadn’t come here.

“Really,” Theo snarls, looking at us both disbelieving, mossy eyes flat, sneering, “you really need me to remind you that getting captured by the ghost riders isn’t going to help save your friends?”

Before Liam can snap back, eyes flashing at Theo, the silhouettes of more oncoming ghost riders fills the hall like macabre shadow puppets.

Instead, he sighs, “we’re all getting caught. You can do it while you’re running. I’m going down fighting.”

I laugh in spite of myself, “like big damn heroes,” smiling over at Liam. It feels wrong. My lips smiling even as the terror of being taken, the look in Hayden’s eyes as she resigned herself to her fate, make me want to scream and never stop. To scream until my throat goes hoarse.

I turn to face the oncoming riders, Liam growling besides me, claws sharp.

“Don’t be stupid El,” Theo utters, “go.”

“El,” he snarls.

I ignore him.

Liam roars.

They charge.

Theo barely dodges a whip, falling to the ground.

The cold heart stone in the pit of my stomach grows heavy, tongue pressing hard to the roof of my mouth as I stand over him, staring down the ghost rider. My will is iron as it palms it’s whip drawing closer.

All the rabbit brained fear, the panic that has sent so many running as the whip cracks and takes them, backs turned, the crushing hopeless I’ve been privy to ever since we’d found that boy, ever since Corey had pulled one of them into our world swells up inside of me.

Theo had once said that my mind acted like a two way street, pulling everything and sending anything, but it didn’t have to be. It was my mind, and I could control it and I wanted them to feel that same panic and fear.

My face twists in concentration, angry and tired and so done with this supernatural bullshit.

It raises it’s hand, ready to send it’s whip flying and I focus, sending all that paralyzing fear like a knife and jamming it right into the empty space where it’s mind should be, the empty pit that was it’s mind. Erased and gone and the perfect mirror.

The whip slips out of it’s hand, body hitting the floor with a dull thunk.

I let a breath I hand’t known I’d been holding out, laughter threatening to spill out in relief but this isn’t over.

Theo shoves me out of the way as another ghost rider strikes and I am left helpless once more, drained and fighting the heaviness creeping into my eyes. It’s stronger than Theo, but he’s clever, wrestling the gun from it and shooting the thing.

Then whipping around to shoot the one that has Liam pinned down, before looking over at me, “you couldn’t have done that to all of them?”

My eyes are wide, still shocked that I’d even managed to control, really control and use what ever abilities I had, “I-I don’t. . .I’m not even sure what I did.”

Liam grins at us both, “and you thought my plan sucked.”

“It still sucks,” I retort as more ghost riders appear.

“Cut off one head,” Liam mutters under his breath, fangs elongating once more, “and two more grow back.” He roars, his fear never lasting long before it transforms into red hot pipping anger, rushing through his veins and blocking all else out.

Theo rolls his eyes, wrapping his arms around the beta as he yells, “let’s go,” and dragging Liam into the elevator. “El that means you too,” he snaps, but my feet stay rooted to the ground.

The elevators doors shut and the ghost riders charge once more, Theo growling behind me, “El,” he urges, “run.” He charges them and it’s an eerie sensation to have nothing rise out from them. No anger, no determination, just robotically following command. No that wasn’t right. There was no queen or king giving handing down orders here.

Just a hive mind, following their nature, following their purpose in the natural order. Nothing but vessels for a force older and more powerful than any of us.

With a deep sigh, I steel myself, pushing all other thoughts and sounds out of mind, for what I am about to do. Supplanting the sheriff’s emotions had been difficult because he already had some to start with, and I’d had to change them. Changing will’s-this should be easy.

I close my eyes, hands shaking so hard I have to clench them into fists, nails digging into my skin.

Force them.

My will, my feelings, all mine.

I feel for those cold hard empty spaces, the lack of something sending a nauseating feeling through me, the way a black hole seems to go against everything in nature. Anti-matter.

I can’t remember anything Lydia told me about it. Her words often going above my head as she talked at me, going through her thoughts out loud.

Focus.

I grab ahold of those cold empty spaces, and think of all the love I have for my cousin, my aunt, my friends who’d do anything, even for a boy they didn’t know, for Allison that had carried Ethan out of the club, so dedicated to her new motto. Scott’s warm smile as we’d traced his dorky circles into the ground, Liam and Stiles breaking out into lightsaber fights not ten minutes later as Stiles complained about disney scarping his extended canon.

Corey had stayed on the eyes watching us all, until Mason and I had grabbed his hands and dragged

Lydia painting my nails in my room, carefully splaying the brush until every spot was evenly coated, neither of us feeling the need to talk after a long week at school. They way Kira and Malia would sleepover, Malia claiming all the pillows early on in the night as we all laid in Lydia’s bed, Kira’s foot nudging mine while Malia and Lydia bickered.

Kira’s smile as she forced me along to a school dance, turning her boyfriend down who pouted and complained all week, before laughing as we all danced together, forming our own little spot on the dance floor.

Her fingers braiding my hair as she smiled knowingly after watching me and Theo talk, his lips full of such sweet lies and-

and the way he’d believed me about everything. The only person who’d believed I wasn’t crazy or hearing things. Who wouldn’t give me those pitying or worse, indulgent smiles as I tried to explain what was happening.

Theo who had chosen to stay and fight and saved Liam’s neck twice in the last hour.

Focus.

I imagine all that warm love pouring out of me, amplified as it travels from one ghost rider to another, mirroring and focusing my deep rooted tenderness I had for my friends, who were more of a family, a pack, and send it smashing into the ghost riders.

Theo’s shirt is ripped to shreds under my cheek, his arms propping me up against his chest as I regain consciousness, fog clouding everything. His hand rubs the back of mine as he clasps it against his chest, rising over his heart, beating solidly under my hand, ungloved.

For once, I don’t sense a brick wall of deceptive calm, fake like artificial sweetener. There’s just a wave of relief before he speaks, “Don’t do that to me again,” a mere whisper befitting the empty hall.

I jolt, glancing around wildly, remembering the mass of ghost riders. He pulls me closer against him, “Don’t you dare do that to me again.”

Confused, I ask, “do what,” racking my brain together to piece together what happened and how I had ended up here. Not that I minded being held by Theo. Sometimes you need a monster of your own to keep all the others at bay.

His eyes widen, the deep green of his eyes staring into mine, for once, he’s at a loss for words.

Theo looks away, swallowing thickly, his hold on me tight even as I sit up, bones aching. “You took them all out El,” his hand stilling over mine, “the whole hospital.”

I panic, “like-killed them?”

He shrugs, “they just dissolved into the green dust like their victims do.” Theo meets my searching gaze once more, his lips so close to mine I can feel his warm breath tickling my skin. “I knew you could.”

“Well,” I admit, “I just listened to your advice.”

He laughs humorlessly, smiling crookedly, “didn’t anyone ever tell you not to listen to a word I say.”

“You never hurt me.”

“That’s not true,” he says quietly, as we both think of Lydia and how angry I’d been when my aunt had placed her in that place. How scared I was that she would do the same to me.

“You know what I mean,” I say softly, hoping I’m not reading this all wrong, “you didn’t use me.”

“I didn’t need to,” he says, bringing a hand up to my cheek, caressing my skin soft tenderly it sends warm tingles throughout my body. “You were a non factor.”

My eyes narrow, “you could have lied and said Mariella if I’d used you all my plans would have fallen apart because you’re too powerful.”

He laughs quietly, shoulders shaking as he looks down at my, hand stilling on my chin, tilting my head closer to his so that out foreheads are resting against each other.

A longing runs from the base of my throat, wanting nothing more than to kiss him, but I can’t summon the courage to do it. The last thing I want is to scare Theo away.

“Is that what you want from me,” he wonders softly, “lies? Because I can tell you any lie you want to hear if that’s what you want.”

“No,” I respond, studying the dirt on his jaw, the mole on his cheek that I’d thought of kissing before everything had gone to hell like it inevitably does in this town. “I just want you to be you.”

“Even if I’m a horrible person that’s done awful things,” he says, barely audible.

“I don’t think you’re a horrible person,” I confess, “and maybe thats a mistake, but I don’t think anyone is ever bad or good, except maybe for Scott. I think people do bad things, just like hey do good things, but that doesn’t make them good or bad.” My words are clumsy and I blush feeling stupid.

Theo smiles, his hand dragging me forward catching my lips with his, kissing so hard, like I’ll disappear if he lets go for even a second. My first kiss and my heart can’t stop racing, leaning into him, kissing him back eagerly.

My hands grip his ripped shirt, unafraid of anything I might sense, lost in Theo, in the feeling of his lips against mine, lighting my skin on fire with desire.

He pulls away first, leaving me breathless, and yearning for more.

“We need to find Liam and the others,” he states, reluctantly, his hands grasping mine.

“You’re probably right,” I utter, standing up and dusting my jeans from the grime of the floor. “Gloves,” I say, hand outstretched towards Theo.

He chuckles, lips pulling up into his signature smirk, “you really think you still need them after that?”

“Theo, I still can’t control it. That was a one off.”

He shakes his head, “You don’t really believe that do you,” but hands over the gloves anyway much to my relief.

I pull the soft leather over my hands and follow behind Theo, walking back out into the hallway. But instead of the linoleum floors, we’re treated with railroad tracks coating the ground, railroad tracks crisscrossing beacon hills leading await some other unknown place, the focal point.

“I bet it’s the high school,” I mutter, “it’s always the high school.”

“Let’s go,” he says grimacing even as he leads the way however reluctantly, not really believing he was really walking towards the very ghost riders we’d barely escaped from.

@josie605

#teen wolf #theo raeken #theo raekan imagine #theo raekan x reader #theo raeken imagine #theo raeken x reader #mine #cody christian

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dice-and-die · 6 years

Text

How I smuggled weed through the airport on a trip to Florida when I was seventeen.

So in response to this post https://wildstorm45.tumblr.com/post/173873763476/5-likes-and-ill-tell-the-story-of-how-i-snuck getting 8 notes, I owe you all the story of a god damn life time. So here we go.

I really didn’t think I would end up telling this story to anyone but my closest relatives and friends but hey here we go, this is about to be a trip and a half for you guys. But just a warning this is gonna get a little graphic so if your squeamish now is the time to nope the fuck out.

Alright, where to begin???

Its November, It’s after Thanksgiving. So it’s me and my sister, and my dad, and my step mom, and my sister’s fiancé, and my girlfriend. This was the group. We were all taking a trip to Florida for a week, to visit my grandparents on my dad’s side of the family and to also have a good time, Yknow go to some theme parks and shit. My Girlfriend and I, who are the gayest fucking stoners you’ll ever meet, decided we weren’t going to go a whole week without weed. Wasn’t gonna happen. Absolutely not.

So my Girlfriend she goes “Well we’re underage. How are we gonna smuggle weed through an airport and NOT get caught? We’re fucking stupid, and I’ll be finna reeched if we get caught.” And I was like “Watch the master babe, and fucking learn.” Yknow all confident-like, you know like I’m just the shit, right?

So I proceed to get all our weed, all of it. I grind it all up and I put it in a little plastic baggie and I get that shit as airtight as possible, right? More fucking airtight than vacuum sealed salmon! And then I get some latex gloves and layer like three of them over my hands and proceed to wrap the baggie of weed in a layer of duct tape, then sprayed it with the most powerful perfume we had in the house. Then I left it there for two days, spraying it with perfume every now and then. Then I repeated the cycle of wrap in duct tape, spray with perfume for two days, I repeated it at least two or three times.

(Not to mention we wrapped our glass pipes in bubblewrap and hid them deep in the depths of our bags. Deep deep deeeeeeeep in the depths.)

Then comes the worst part. It’s time to leave for our trip. So what ever am I to do now with this fatass little wad of duct tape rolled weed? My sister might I add, had well enough caught on to what I was doing and she greatly disapproved, and she was utterly livid when me and my girlfriend spent a half hour in the bathroom shoving that god damn thing up my fucking cootch. Unfortunately we learned the hard way that a fat wad of duct tape is NOT going anywhere without some lubrication, and that’s all there is to say on the matter.

So I waddle out of the bathroom because obviously it’s not fucking comfortable having a softball sized wad of duct tape stuck in you, and it takes everything within my power to walk normally and not cry at the same time. By the time we get to the airport I’ve kind of settled down Yknow? It’s not so bad when your sitting down and relaxing and not moving at all but when I got up to get out of the car I was instantaneously reminded of how awkward and weird everything felt and I just kind of keeled over out of the car and laid on the pavement for a minute. Then my sister helps me up and she whispers to me “I swear to god if you can’t pull this off then I’m definitely NOT bailing you out of jail.” And I’m like “wow thanks for believing in me, what happens if I do though?” But of course she refuses to answer me so ya’know whatever.

So I walk as normally as I possibly can through the airport and my girlfriend absolutely refused to leave me not for one second, what a fucking champ, god I love her so much. Anyways, we get to the metal detector and for some godforsaken reason the metal detector goes off when I go through it because of fucking course it does. So obviously I get pulled aside and I start getting patted down. And the whole time I’m being patted down I’m making eye contact with my sister and my girlfriend and they just have stone cold poker faces on, I can only imagine what they were thinking. I don’t know how but they never figured out that something was actually up with me, cause after they were done with me I obviously still moved awkwardly. Thankfully the metal detector only detected my necklace so they chalked it to that and let me move on. I suppose those two security guards were just bad at their job.

(Jeff and Brenda if your reading this then know that I was that chubby girl with the pink and yellow striped t shirt and the black leather jacket. Yeah. I smuggled weed through the airport and you didn’t even know. Nice job ya big goofs.)

Eventually we get on the plane and I sit down and just start crying in relief that I wasn’t caught. And my sister’s fiancé finally caught on as well and he was like “Holy shit Al you fucking smugged something didn’t you?” And I just got the most smug look on my face even though I was stressed out still and he goes “oh my fucking god you did.” But my Dad and Stepmom were still utterly oblivious the whole time. They didn’t even know what was going on until we were in Florida.

Finally we get to Florida and we get to my Nana’s house and I shit you not me and my girlfriend spent an hour and a half in the bathroom getting the fucking lubed up duct tape weed wad out of my fucking cootch. It’s safe to say that we had an absolutely lit time and that it was very much worth the extreme stress just for some god damn weed, and you better believe we smoked ALL of it because there was no way in hell I was gonna waste weed or have to smuggle it back home for a second time.

And the best part? The most powerful smelling perfume we had in the House was peppermint candy scented. My crotch smelled like god damn peppermint candy for two fucking weeks after.

Anyways that’s the story of how I smuggled weed through an airport on a trip to florida when I was seventeen and had the time of my life doing it.

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